Session Report – Barrowmaze – Session 21

[The Revengers spend some time looking around the newly accessible area in the Barrowmaze before peeling the filigree from some sarcophagi.]

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

PCs (The Revengers)
Daphne – female human Blade-Sister (5th level Bladedancer)
Godric – male Dwarven Craftpriest (3nd level Craftpriest))
Boris the Fighter – male human Exemplar (5th level Fighter)
Adam – male human Magician (4th level Mage)
Hrglclxin [pronounced her-gull-klack sin] – male human Scout (1st level Explorer)

NPCs
Dergos – male human guide, still sold on the glory of adventuring, hired by Boris
‘Len – professional torchbearer, full name is Morgullen, but he never uses it, hired by Boris
Proximo – male human Footpad, Godric’s henchman
Vorgand – female human porter, a university student earning coin, hired by Daphne


Evening, Cromsday, July 17th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
The Revengers, just back in town [see Session 20], spend time healing up from their adventure through the use of Healing proficiencies and application of the Comfrey herb.  It helps, but they are not completely healed up.

Freysday, July 18th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Not wanting to explore the Barrowmaze still bearing the wounds from their last expedition, the Revengers use healing magic from Daphne and Godric to finish healing up.  They re-provision and make arrangements at the Mercenary Guide for their regular guide, torchbearer, and porters for the next day.

Yggsday, July 19th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
In the early morning, the Revengers meet up with their hirelings at the Mercenary Guild building and then headed south into the Barrowmoor.  While hiking through the moors, the Revengers came across two coffer corpses and destroyed them in less time that it takes to read this sentence.  [I didn’t even bother having the players roll dice – coffer corpses are not a mystery to them and the PCs can quickly take them down.  We were running a bit late, so doing this avoided wasting time.]

Arriving at the field of barrows nearly an hour before Noon, the Revengers walked straight to Barrow 20, their new “shortcut” into the dungeon below the barrows.  Leaving Dergos on top of the barrow, the rest descended into the barrow, released the catch on the sarcophagus, pushed it aside, and descended the exposed narrow steps into the dungeon itself.

At the main corridor they went north, their goal to explore off the grand hallway [Room 92] before settling down to strip gold off some sarcophagi [in Room 90].  The room with the pyramid of stones [Room 56] also had some zombies this time.  Daphne turned them in the name of Inanna, allowing Boris to safely and quickly destroy them with his enchanted greataxe.  The revengers checked the zombies for lot but found none.

The next room [Room 57] was empty [except for the three mongrelmen corpses].  Passing through the two secret doors, the Revengers entered the grand hallway [Room 92].  The Revengers first investigated their actual target room [Room 90] to verify it was still empty of undead.  With that room verified clear, they went down the short hallway just north of it to investigate at its end.  Godric and Proximo spent time examining the door before pronouncing it safe to open.

The room on the other side was 30x30 feet, with a second door on the north wall.  Looking around the room from the doorway, pressure plates were noticed in the center of the room with a cage, recessed into the ceiling, suspended over that section of floor.  The Revengers entered the room, carefully avoiding the pressure-plated center of the room.  Boris and Adam went over to the door on the north wall and discussed possibly exploring further north instead of just exploring off the grand hallway for today.

While that conversation was happening, Godric retried a stone from the debris in the grand hallway and threw it onto a pressure plate in the center of the room, triggering the iron cage trap.  The cage dropped from the ceiling with a shriek [it was on rusted runners] and clanged to the floor extremely loudly, making Boris jump from surprise.  The group, as one, gave Godric a dirty look and took up a defensive position to see if anything showed up to investigate the noise.  After waiting a couple of minutes and nothing showing up [I couldn’t believe it either, but the extra random encounter dice I rolled all said “Nope!”], the group took a rest, during which they decided to open the northern door to see what was beyond it before deciding which way to explore next.

After packing up from their rest, Boris opened the door on the north wall.  Beyond was another corridor heading north with a branch to the west just at the torch limit.  Rather than going deeper into unexplored territory, the group decided to close the door and go back to the grand hallway.  Walking across the grand hallway, the group formed started exploring past the bashed in door, to the next chamber east [Room 100].  Here they were attacked by a group of mongrelmen waiting in ambush, one of which landed a perfect blow on Boris [natural 20 on the die].  Boris saw three of the six mongrelmen head south to possibly try a flanking maneuver.  He called a warning back over his shoulder to the rest of the group.

The other three mongrelmen were indeed attempting a flanking move, and Hrglclxin fired arrows at them as they charged.  The fight was brief but fierce, as one of the flankers scored a perfect hit on Godric before dying.  Searching the bodies afterward, they found two keys: one a strange metal key that ended in the shape of a pentagram and the other a key engraved with a book.  Daphne made the connection between the first key and Barrow 7’s sealed bronze door with the pentagram keyhole.  Both keys were safely stored away.

From this room [still Room 100], the Revengers shone light down both hallways leading away.  They confirmed the south hallway contained a connection to the grand hallway as well as going further south.  The east hallway went further than their light pierced, but they could see a door on the left wall.  Estimating that they had time to peel the gold filigree but would then need to return to town, the Revengers back tracked to the room with the gold filigree [Room 90].  After another rest, during which Godric attempted to heal himself and failed, Godric pulled out his tools and started carefully removing the gold filigree from the sarcophagi.  This took two hours, during which the group was attacked by a small swarm of stirges [4 of them] and a slightly larger herd of fire beetles [6 of them, which sadly do NOT shoot actual fire – I plan on fixing this and have warned the players].

When Godric finished, the group down hit points but 1700 gp richer, everyone packed up their gear and the Revengers returned to the surface.  There they collected Dergos, who was starting to get worried as it was now past the time the group normally leaves.  On the way back to town two zombies approached the group, but Daphne sent them fleeing with a stern glare.

[Something like this]

Back in Helix, Boris made a donation to the Shrine of St. Ygg and received a cure light wounds for his donation.  Daphne cast cure light twice on herself to fully recover from her wounds and stirge-induced blood loss.  Adam and Godric used their healing arts to restore the remaining damage the Revengers had taken in the Barrowmaze.  Then the group retired to the Brazen Strumpet for drinks and the telling of tales.

Godric located Tripp and contracted Tripp to be his agent in locating a set of enchanted plate armor [looking for +1 plate armor].  Tripp agreed to the commission for a percent of the sale and half of whatever discount he can arrange.  Godric accepted those terms and they wrote up a contract to that effect.

End of Session


[One of the things I need to do for future sessions is put together some generic NPC Tomb Robbers that I can use at a moment’s notice, like when they show up as a wandering monster.  Barrowmaze has a monster entry for them, but most of it is “put together something that matches your party’s capabilities”.  This is something I can’t easily do on the fly without pausing the game too long, so I need to prep for this.  I also need to bring back the Norse Whisperers with a couple of additional levels and work out which areas they’ve been exploring.  The balance here is between verisimilitude and depriving the PCs of treasure they’ll need to level up.]


The Motley Crew
Session 1: The Start
…
Session 11: TPK


The Revengers
Session 12: Rise of the Revengers
Session 13
Session 14
Session 15
Session 16
Session 17
Session 18
Session 19
Session 20

Session 22

Session Report – Barrowmaze – Session 20

[The Revengers follow a treasure map and find a shortcut…eventually.]

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

PCs (The Revengers)
Adam – male human Magician (4th level Mage)
Godric – male Dwarven Craftpriest (3nd level Craftpriest))
Boris the Fighter – male human Exemplar (5th level Fighter)
Daphne – female human Blade-Sister (5th level Bladedancer)
Hrglclxin [pronounced her-gull-klack sin] – male human Scout (1st level Explorer)

NPCs
Dergos – male human guide, still sold on the glory of adventuring, hired by Boris
‘Len – professional torchbearer, full name is Morgullen, but he never uses it, hired by Boris
Proximo – male human Footpad, Godric’s henchman


Cromsday, July 10th, through Magusday, July 16th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Adam hosts an open party in Helix.  While good, it is nowhere near the scale of previous celebrations and got poor reviews as a result.  Many partiers leave Helix and go back to either Ironguard Motte or Bogtown.

During that week, the Revengers paid Tripp to make copies of all their maps of the Barrowmaze.  They realized that if something fatal happened to Boris [who currently handles the mapping], they would lose all their stored knowledge of the dungeon.  The copies are deposited in Daphne’s storage chest at Turgen’s Trade Goods.

Comparing the one of the maps they were gifted by Felix [who appeared only in Session 17 and is now off on a quest], Boris worked out that one of them connected areas they knew about to another surface entrance, one they had no knowledge of.  Boris discussed it with the other Revengers and all agreed that it was worthwhile to investigate another potential entrance.

Magusday, July 16th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
As the week-long party wound down, several members of the Revengers arranged for their favored hirelings to be available and Daphne decided she needed a porter of her own.  Boris hired Durgos as guide and ‘Len as a torchbearer.  Hrglclxin re-hired Nolig as porter and Daphne hired Vorgand, a university student using working the summer to pay for her admission fees [she may also have been very drunk at the time].

Cromsday, July 17th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Early in the morning the Revengers formed up at the Mercenary Guild building, meeting their hirelings there.  They headed south into the Barrowmoor, on their way to the field of barrows.  Along the way they ran into a pair of giant toads, but quickly dispatched them [only 2 rounds of combat].

Shortly before Noon, they arrived at the field of barrows and made their way to Barrow 12.  They found the rope down, indicating that someone else might be in the dungeon.  On their guard, they descended down the rope, one at a time.  Boris was first, and when he stepped off the rope, he noticed some of the shadows in the room moved in ways they shouldn’t.  He was calling up to ‘Len to hold the light steady when three of the shadows detached from the walls and attacked him!

Daphne and Godric shimmied down the rope to help Boris defend against the shadows.  While Boris was nigh-invulnerable due to his magic plate armor, Daphne was hit twice and Godric once by the shadows before they were defeated.  Luckily, the amount of strength drained from the two of them was minimal [because my dice rolls were low].  They knew their strength would return, but it would be a while [8 Turns or 80 minutes], so Daphne unloaded some of her equipment onto Vorgand to lighten her load.

From there they moved down the long corridor to the 2nd door on their left [Room 5], which was still empty.  With a small sigh of relief they walked across the room and peeked through the door on the other side.  The hallway and room they could see [Room 20] appeared to be clear, so they walked through, and then Boris checked the ceiling and spotted four giant centipedes on the room ceiling.  Boris called a warning to the rest of the Revengers and then charged the centipedes, cleaving through them quickly.

With that “threat” dealt with, the Revengers went east, following the treasure map past the stinky room [Room 19] to secret storage room [Room 16], which Boris pointed out to the new members of the group.  Just past that was an empty room [Room 18], which was the furthest the Revengers had explored in this direction.  The treasure map they had showed a long corridor behind the door in the east wall, with doors and side passages.  Near the end of the corridor a side passage lead [eventually] to a set of stairs that appeared to lead to the surface.  This was their goal.

Boris opened the door at the back of Room 18, beyond which was the long corridor the treasure map showed.  Thirty feet down the corridor was an open pit, that was not shown on the map.  The Revengers discussed how to bypass the pit and settled on rigging a rough rope bridge using spikes driven into the walls.  Proximo climbed across to set the spikes on the far side while Hrglclxin provided cover with his bow.

Once the adventurers bypassed the trap, they came to an intersection.  The passage north was indicated on the treasure map, but not explored.  There was also a bricked section, possibly cutting off a southern passage or room.  The main corridor considered east, as shown on the treasure map.  On the floor of the intersection were some chalk symbols.  An arrow pointing east was marked out, a second mark pointed west.  The chalk marks seemed recent and they suspected Dr. Venom West might have made them.

The adventurers continued east [planning to come back later to investigate the northern passage and the bricked off area].  The next door along was ajar.  Peeking in, Boris observed several giant flies, feeding on strangely preserved corpses [Room 41].  Boris rushed in and slaughtered all of the giant flies by cleaving them.  After some discussion, the group searched the burial alcoves lining the walls, finding platinum coins, a potion of unknown power, and a large ruby.  All these were placed in the loot bag and the group went on.

The corridor continued east, past a set of double doors to a room that was more a widening of the hallway on the left, where a broken and defaced statue sat.  There were doors on the southern wall, but the map indicated whatever was behind them was dangerous.  The adventurers debated whether clearing the rooms was more important that getting to the stairs on the map.  They eventually decided that getting to the stairs was more important and they could come back to clear the rooms once they establish where the stairs go.

The adventurers continued east to another intersection.  They looked north and east to verify what was on the map before turning right to head south.  Forty feet on they found the narrow side passage the map indicated led to the stairs up.  The dust and cobwebs here were disturbed, showing people had passed through here, probably in the past month or so.  [The players recognized where their characters were, even if these particular characters have never been here before.]  They followed this side passage to a set of stairs up.  At the top of the stairs was a rock slab with grips carved into it and a mechanism release.  Triggering the release allowed the slab to be moved sideways, exposing the interior of a barrow [Barrow 20].  To the side they could see stairs lit by daylight. 

The adventurers entered the barrow and discovered that the stone slab was the bottom of a broken sarcophagus decorated in bas relief with skeletons dancing in the Underworld.  Godric and Proximo investigated the sarcophagus to discover how to open the secret passage from this side while Boris and Daphne went up to the surface to see where they were.  On the surface the two of them climbed on top of the barrow and looked around.  They spotted Durgos sitting on top of Barrow 12, several hundred feet to their west-northwest and waved at him.  He waved back, somewhat confused about how they got there.

Satisfied they had a solid shortcut into the Barrowmaze, the adventurers descended again to investigate some of the side rooms with odd labels on the treasure map.  They went north to the last intersection and turned right to investigate a room to the east labeled “Teeth” on the map.  There they found an octagonal room lined with burial alcoves and with eight human teeth in the center of the floor, arranged to form an arrow pointing east, back the way they came from originally [Room 55].  They decided to not mess with the teeth, but searched the burial alcoves and found a number of platinum coins.

They next investigated a trapezoidal room down the north passage [Room 56].  The found a pyramid of stones along the northern wall, some graffiti on the wall stating “Don’t go on!”, and a door in the northeast corner.  The map did not indicate what was beyond [the previous explorers took heed of the graffiti perhaps], but the Revengers were not going to let that stop them – although they did knock first.

Boris opened the door and saw what appeared to be an old woman crumpled to the floor.  She weakly called for help, which seemed to make Boris quite suspicious.  He looked around and spotted the mongrel men waiting in ambush as they attacked!

There were only three mongrel men facing the seasoned adventurers and the fight was soon over.  Examination of the room showed piles of coins the mongrelmen had been sorting.  The adventurers scooped up all the coins into the loot bag, along with four emeralds of good size.

Having linked in their minds that mongrelmen indicate secret doors nearby, the Revengers searched the walls for secret doors, finding one in the southeast corner.  Beyond the secret door was a ten foot by ten foot empty room.  They searched again and found another secret door on the far wall.  This door opened to a grand hallway running north and a little bit south [“Room” 92].

The Revengers explored the grand hallway, finding two doors and two corridors leading out of the grand hallway.  Proximo also found a concealed pit when he fell into it, but quick reflexes on his part kept the damage he took to a minimum as he got his feet under him before he hit bottom [I rolled a “1” for damage].  On the western wall was first a door that had been smashed in long ago [Room 90] and then one of the corridors out, which lead to another door, this one closed [to Room 89].  On the east wall the corridor and bashed in door both appeared to lead to a room and parallel corridor that connected [Room 100].

Aware that their planned departure time was approaching [they always leave the area around 4:00 to have enough time to make it back to town with the sun still up], they investigated the bashed door on the western wall.  The long narrow room beyond was covered in thick dust with destroyed funerary baskets and three broken stone sarcophagi inside.  Proximo and Godric started searching while the rest of the party rested.  Proximo found little, but Godric was investigating the sarcophagi and after clearing off some of the dust, discovered that the sarcophagi were covered in gold filigree.  He had the tools to remove the filigree [being a craftpriest], but it would take a couple hours to collect it all.  Two hours was more time than the Revengers felt they had left to spend on this trip, so they scattered some of the dust to hide the exposed filigree and left, returning to the surface through their new shortcut.

On the surface they walked over to Barrow 12 and collected Durgos.  On the way back to Helix, a walking pile of plant-matter approached them.  At first they thought it was a shambling mound, but then Hrglclxin noticed the stone fists peeking out of the plants arms.  Every adventurer in the duchy had heard tales of the animated statues released from the barrows, seeking the glowing sword stolen by the Motley Crew – the same sword Boris sheathed at Boris’ hip!  Boris attacked with his enchanted axe, but the axe was ripped from his hands as it got tangled up in the plant-matter wrapped around the statue.

The rest of the Revengers pressed the attack and brought down the animated statue.  Boris retrieved his axe from the vines while Hrglclxin knocked the fists off the statue to take back to town as trophies.  This left two more statues still wandering the Barrowmoor.
End of Session


[So work and life got very busy and I did not get this typed up last week due to lack of time.  I think I need to do another edit to check for tense and grammar, but I’m still pressed for time and want to get this posted before I have three sets of notes waiting to be typed up.  I might get last week’s session typed up later this week, but I can’t 100% promise that right now – we’ll see how much time I have.]

The Motley Crew
Session 1: The Start
…
Session 11: TPK

The Revengers
Session 12: Rise of the Revengers
Session 13
Session 14
Session 15
Session 16
Session 17
Session 18
Session 19

Session 21

No Barrowmaze This Week

Last week, we were down two players and my wife had food poisoning, so there was no game.  With no game last week, there is nothing to post this week.  In the meantime, I'll tell you about the other campaign I'm prepping.

I play in a monthly Rise of the Runelords game using the Artesia game system.  The GM for that is out of state for several months training for his new job.  Rather than risk having the group disperse from inactivity, I volunteered to run a game to fill the gap.  I call it HRE 1650: The Miniseries.

Set in a version of the Holy Roman Empire, just after the Thirty Years War, the PCs will be the friends and hangers-on of the 4th son of a minor barony - low-lifes.  The game starts on the 19th birthday of their patron and all are at a shady tavern just across the border, celebrating.  Then events happen that catapult the 4th son of the Baron into suddenly being the Baron (assuming he and the PCs survive the night).

The new Baron needs to find out who just tried to take over his barony, but cannot leave or the barony will fall apart and be consumed.  He turns to the PCs to be his trusted [and potentially disposable] agents, asking them to dig into the conspiracy and "fix things".

There should be enough for the players to do to cover 4-5 play sessions with this setup, including a "level boss" for the players to defeat.  If our original DM ends up not returning to Houston to work (which is a possibility), I can switch to HRE 1650: The Series and run it as a longer campaign with a final boss stepping out of the shadows.

I'll be using the Adventurer, Conqueror, King System including the ACKS Player's Companion, Domains at War, and Guns of War supplements.  I've been diving into the history and maps of the Holy Roman Empire to find an appropriate place to tuck a barony.  I've also been making notes how history is different due to the fantasy races.  Pagantry is recognized as a religious category in the Empire and covers just about anything not Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.  [As Terry Pratchett pointed out in his Discworld books, it's hard to deny the existence of gods when they can come by and throw rocks at your house.]

I'm creating a map in Adobe Illustrator using a map of the HRE from 1400.  My assumption is that the added issues of a fantasy world would slow down the historical consolidation of lands.  Plus, I like the look of the map in 1400.

That's about where I am right now, still collecting data and warping it to meet my campaign needs.  The German Wikipedia has been extremely useful for this (as you might expect) and Chrome's translate capability is good enough that I can understand the articles.  I'm filling up my own wiki with the results (using WikidPad) for hopefully quick access during play.  I'll also produce a small gazetteer of the immediate environs and anything major the players will need to know.

That's it for this week.  There will be a Barrowmaze session report next week and I'll do occasional updates on the HRE 1650 campaign, which starts at the end of this month (September).