[Finish exploring the lower level and start exploring the upper level.]
[This session took place April, 2002 (I don’t have the exact date). We were playing Champions 4th Edition with the Second Edition Fantasy Hero supplement.]
Player Characters
Tim, a Wizard - male human from the Free City of Freegate, graduate of Outlands University
Dangar Stonekleaver - male dwarf from the Northern Dwarven Kingdom
Kyle Logan – male human thief and stowaway on the Yardbird
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
Session Begins:
After spending the night sleeping in the safety of The Yardbird, the adventurers re-equipped themselves returned to the catacombs. Wendell stayed on the Yardbird because Capt. Geoffrey of the Guard requires him to. There was some debate on this point as to which captain had authority here – the Captain of the Ship or the Captain of the Guard. They spent part of the day working it out in the gnomic fashion: bureaucratically.
[I believe Wendell’s player was unable to make this session and this was my in-story way to remove him from the stage without disrupting things too much.]
The Outlanders worked their way back down into the catacombs. Due to some uncertainty as to where rooms were in relation to each other (and to avoid getting lost), Malwyn started performing some basic mapping. They started exploring further from the smelly bug room.
The party found stairs leading up to a higher level of the catacombs [but still underground]. Deciding to investigate the rest of this level first, they choose not to go up the steps. They followed the hallway beyond the south door to the east door of the room of the sleeping monks. They followed that hallway to the north to a stone block in an intersection. They pushed the block up a sloping corridor that had rollers built into the floor to the top of the slope, discovering a side passage around. They wedged the stone block into place at the top of the slope [otherwise it would slide back down on the rollers] and returned back down to finish exploring the lower level. The corridor south ended at a bronze door that was barred from the other side.
The Outlanders decided to circle around the door, back tracking to the hall of giant heads [I no longer remember when they discovered that] and following that hallway to the west. They eventually made their way to a crypt that was on the other side of the barred door. The party spread out to investigate.
While investigating a large hollow plaster dome in the back, Kyle released a Shadow that attacked him, starting a fight. The Shadow was immune to the party’s [non-magical] weapons, but not to some bronze spears Malwyn pulled from the hands of the terra cotta statues in the crypt. Malwyn killed the Shadow with a well-placed attack. Tim verified that the spears were magical as were some obsidian spearheads found in the rubble, which the Outlanders quickly secured. Kyle eventually recovered from the damage the Shadow did to him.
Having finished exploring the lower level, the party moved up the sloped hallway with rollers. Exploring past that, the party found a processional hallway with a sun symbol on the floor. In this room they found a beholder! …or so they thought. By not instantly attacking and instead trying to hide, they came to realize that it was not really a beholder but a gas spore. Tim used his Telekinesis spell to push the floating gas bag down the hall and then he detonated it. The adventurers retreated as the spore cloud filled the room. Instead of standing around and waiting for the spores to settle, the Outlanders chose a different direction to explore.
They circumvented a hallway they believed was set up as a ball court due to wall paintings showing the game being played and one of the teams being sacrificed at the end. Past that they found a temple room dedicated to some sort of cat god.
While the party was investigating the altar in that room, what they thought was a stuffed tiger came to life as a weretiger and nearly disemboweled Dangar with its initial attack. Malwyn tried out a command word he has discovered for his sword and the sword burst into flame! Attacking the weretiger with his now flaming sword, Malwyn set it on fire and the weretiger "died". The flames died out quickly and from the ashes the original stuffed tiger reformed! The Healing Rock, along with some healing potions, were applied to Dangar to partially heal him up.
After that excitement, the party continued to investigate the crypt. Darkfox noticed that the Calendar wheel behind the altar appeared to be hinged. Trying several ways to open it, she finally got the right combo (a double strike to the sun in the center) and it swung open on two huge hinges. Behind it was a small tunnel leading down. The tunnel’s walls were covered with glyphs and sigils warning trespassers away. The party decided to send Kyle down on a rope to check it out.
At the end of the tunnel Kyle found a short hallway running north-south. It had three doors – one at each end and one in the center wall. The end door near the tunnel he descended had an infinity symbol on it. The middle door had a gold seal on it and two clawed footprints burned into the floor in front of it. The northern door had a bear face on it and a lintel covered in coiling snake sculpture. Kyle called "all safe" and the rest of the party prepped to move down the tunnel.
Darkfox tied the rope to the altar, which animated the weretiger again. She and Tim quickly hopped down the tunnel while Dangar and Malwyn fought the weretiger. Malwyn’s flame saber once again inflicted heavy damage on the weretiger and burned it to ashes again, only for it to reform in its stuffed form. Dangar and Malwyn went down the tunnel, leaving the altar alone to avoid re-animating the weretiger yet again.
Session Ends.
NPCs Met
Just fought monsters this session.
Happening Off-Stage
[Only a night has passed, so nothing new.]
DM Discussion
[The Healing Rock was a magic item I gave the players early on and immediately regretted it. It was too powerful, doing 4 or more dice of healing multiple times a day. I later stipulated that every time that the last charge was used each day, the number of dice of healing dropped by one, but the players just avoided using the last charge each day. Now I would stipulate that every time they used the full healing power of the rock, meaning rolled all the dice of healing, the number of dice would decrease, forcing them to decide between maximum healing or not degrading the healing item. Or I would limit it to no more than 2d6 Healing to begin with.]
[We are getting close to the switch to Hero System 5th Edition, which was released in 2002. I was resistant to switching over…until I had a chance to read through some of the rules. I liked the more unified feel of the rules, particularly the skills section. As it turned out, I missed a lot of small stuff that changed in 5th edition and basically kept running a 4th Edition game with some minor adjustments to point costs. The games I am currently running with players who never played the earlier editions have forced me to actually read what is in the rulebook rather than make assumptions. The players have been very understanding and the effort has been educational.]
Flight of the Yardbird
Previous session: Session 3
Next Session: Session 5 [not edited yet]
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