Murderers and Bank Robbers
Apr. 30th, 2003 12:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was my underdark D+D game. The party saved a lot of lives (although they might not know it), then scurried through hostile territory, refusing to pay their hotel bill. Then they murdered a priest of Meilikki and defiled his temple. To top it off, they robbed a bank.
After healing up in the positive energy chamber at the top of the cliff, Abbey and Steve went down the hill to check on the prisoners and the base camp... but it was too late. The prisoners were gone and the blinded lizards were found dead. Scouting down the tunnel to the former lair of the shadow thoqqua, they saw a rope ladder descending from the darkness above and no sign of the mage (although it was obvious where he'd gone). They walled it off as planned, and decided to rest in the jungle somewhere so as not to attract the attention of the driders if they came by.
But they were too late -- as they turned to leave, a drider revealed itself and demanded they stay. Forever. As undead guardians of the fortress against the drow. The lizards refused, and the party reacted violently, Steve toasting it with his fire breath.
It responded with a lightning bolt. And a web. And another lightning bolt, the whole time levitating higher towards a place it could grab onto the wall and get under cover from the arrows and fire-blasts the party sent up at it. Erelthrae dispelled its shield, though, and it didn't make it.
The lizards were horrified, and rushed off towards their village to vacate it before the other driders found their emmisary dead and took their revenge. The party paused to destroy some chaos orbs for a little extra experience (or, possibly, to deny them to the drow), then hurried after the lizards, joining their camp even though the lizards refused to talk to them.
Steve's clumsy attempts at diplomacy nearly led to bloodshed, but Abbey and K'van talked them down. Eventually, they found one lizard who would talk to them -- Ssethra, the druid they'd rescued from slavery to the mind-plague.
Ssethra told them that the village would be moved somewhere else in the jungle -- someplace less visible. Hopefully, the driders wouldn't be motivated enough to hunt them down, and the drow who were sure to follow eventually (as well as the drow already loose in the jungle) wouldn't stumble across them. Abbey asked them to come with the party to seek the surface, but was informed that all the lizardfolk who were mad enough to risk moving through the underdark had already left, and never been heard from again. She was given the silver raven, however, and asked to send it with instructions if the party ever found its way out of the underdark.
The party didn't want to spend the night in the deserted lizardfolk village, so they moved off a ways and found a relatively sheltered alcove in the cavern wall. There Erelthrae enchanted her armor (by sacrificing wealth to her god) and Slee ditched his giant lizard pet for an even gianter bat -- easily big enough to ride, if it could be trained for the purpose (which would take on the order of weeks).
Then the party hurried quickly through the undead lands with 'invisibility to undead' running for each dash across the open areas, spending the night in between in the formians' cave, which had been cleared of spiders and trapped. They disabled the trap and rested there anyway, and were presented by the formians with a bill for the night's lodging and the damage to the trap. Instead of paying, they left a bill of their own, fining the formians for having an unliscenced, unmarked pit trap without safety railings.
The next day they reached the area of pillars, which were inscribed with dwarven runes. Abbey spoke Duergar, but not actual dwarven, and could only make out that the inscriptions were harmless: dedications to some god or person and the name of the area. The pillared hall went on for miles, with the occasional ruined building or scuttling creature, until the party reached a landmark -- a reflecting pool in a tiled alcove, with a wider gap between pillars leading off from it perpendicular to the direction they'd been travelling.
After determining that the pool was not safe to drink or even touch, and that the runes around it were a love poem of some sort, the party headed down the wide, marked path, and were attacked by a group of six grell. They did some damage and paralyzed a couple people (Erelthrae and Slee) but were eventually taken down. Erelthrae cut off a bunch of their tentacles to use as ropes, since they didn't seem to have any other treasure.
Further down the path, the party found a sunlit area full of green grass and trees, with a small wooden temple in the center. The sunlight had no visible source, but it made Erelthrae uncomfortable. Abbey circled the outside looking for exits other than the front door, but found nothing. Slee and Steve approached the front door, and startled a trio of dire weasels, which fled into the building.
The entire party then advanced into the antechamber and shouted 'hello?', and was attacked by three animated piles of bone! Fearing an imminent turn attempt by the cleric, K'van fled deeper into the temple, where he found an ogre being awoken by one of the weasels. The ogre looked at him, and moved into the back room of the temple, and K'van peered in to see him getting a spell cast on him by a satyr playing pan pipes.
Meanwhile, the cleric's turning proved futile -- the piles of skulls and femurs were not undead -- and the party was forced to beat them down physically, which was fairly straightforwards but took a while.
K'van got impatient and rushed into attack the satyr, slashing him open with his sword... but then the ogre's club smashed down on him and reduced him to a pile of bone dust. The ogre and satyr then advanced into the central courtyard, the satyr continuing to cast spells on himself... and were toasted by Steve's fire breath, although the ogre survived.
The weasels and ogre weren't complete pushovers at that point, but their leader was down and about their only tactic was that they knew how to flank... and after all the weasels were dead the ogre couldn't even do that. Both the satyr and ogre were patched up for later interrogation.
Before the party could worry about that, a falling burning branch alerted them to the ancient tree in the center of the courtyard, which had been set alight by Steve's fire-breath and was now burning merrily, threatening to torch the entire building. Erelthrae organized the controlled felling of the burning tree while Steve amused himself clambering through its upper reaches (being immune to fire) and rescued an old hoe that was inexplicably stuck in its branches.
The satyr was awoken, and tried to talk the party into letting him go by freely giving mostly useless information about the history of the shrine and of himself. Abbey recognized him as a fellow tiefling, not a satyr after all -- which meant that he was probably just a bard, and *not* helpless now that his pipes had been taken away. When he burst into song when asked to tell about how he got down into the underdark, Steve wisely kicked him in the nuts and tore out his throat. The ogre was similarly dealt with, and the bodies burnt in the smouldering remains of the ancient elm.
The party gathered all the treasure from the temple -- a temple of Meilikki, apparently, of which the tiefling had claimed to be the resident priest -- and considered leaving immediately, but now that the former owners were dead it seemed like a pleasant place to spend the night, for everyone except the drow, at least.
The party got little rest, however, as the ghostly guardian of the shrine manifested and did harmless ghost tricks, moving the hoe around and whispering in peoples' ears, until Steve decided to fix the problem of the levitating hoe by snapping it in two. At that point, the ghost got pissed, and manifested, shrieking all scary-like and sending Abbey and Steve running out into the darkness.
This woke Erelthrae and Slee, who tried to reason with it. It was beyond reason... "You burned down the holy tree! You broke the holy hoe! You murdered the priest of the temple! LEAVE!" Its horrific gaze clawed at their souls, and they decided that leaving was a good idea.
In the morning, Slee cast 'plant growth' to help the battered but probably still living roots of the great elm recover, and a drow wizard (who'd been attracted by all the flames and commotion, and asked to travel with the party for protection after discovering that Erelthrae was an enemy of the priestesses of Llolth from whom he'd fled long ago) mended the holy hoe, and the party healed up, and rested another night in the shrine, with no further interference from the beyond. Apparently, the ghost was satisfied.
The next day, after hearing the new wizard describe the tribes of duergar lurking deeper in the pillared area, the party decided to turn back towards the land of mist, in which (according to the dead tiefling) the gnomes lived. Another thoroughfare led in the right direction, so they followed it, passing a prison and a bank on the way.
Wait a second, passing a bank? Not a chance! A quick inspection revealed the bank vault to appear to be secure and unlooted, possibly thanks to the symbol inscribed on it, spotted by Abbey's careful (and lucky) eye. The party rested the night to swap spells for an assault on the vault -- wall of stone (from a wand) to cover the glyph, then stone shape to hollow out an opening around the door.
The door was set into the metal wall of the vault itself, of course. Not a problem! Over the course of four days, the party summoned dozens of thoqqua, buffing them with magic fang and bull's strength to help them gradually eat their way through the iron wall of the vault. The whole time, they were pestered and harassed by the wraiths that lived inside the vault, but the ghostly undead didn't seem to want to face the cleric, and a consecrate spell every night kept the party mostly safe... except for Slee's giant bat, which just made all its spot checks and saving throws as the wraiths attempted to kill it every night.
On the fifth day, as they prepared for the final round of thoqquas that would finally open the hole they'd bored wide enough for a person to fit through, Abbey spotted movement outside, and went to investigate. She discovered about a dozen Duergar camped just out of sight, waiting. The bank seemed fairly defensible, so the party decided to go ahead with the robbery and just try to hold the bank against the duergar if they attacked.
last week next week
After healing up in the positive energy chamber at the top of the cliff, Abbey and Steve went down the hill to check on the prisoners and the base camp... but it was too late. The prisoners were gone and the blinded lizards were found dead. Scouting down the tunnel to the former lair of the shadow thoqqua, they saw a rope ladder descending from the darkness above and no sign of the mage (although it was obvious where he'd gone). They walled it off as planned, and decided to rest in the jungle somewhere so as not to attract the attention of the driders if they came by.
But they were too late -- as they turned to leave, a drider revealed itself and demanded they stay. Forever. As undead guardians of the fortress against the drow. The lizards refused, and the party reacted violently, Steve toasting it with his fire breath.
It responded with a lightning bolt. And a web. And another lightning bolt, the whole time levitating higher towards a place it could grab onto the wall and get under cover from the arrows and fire-blasts the party sent up at it. Erelthrae dispelled its shield, though, and it didn't make it.
The lizards were horrified, and rushed off towards their village to vacate it before the other driders found their emmisary dead and took their revenge. The party paused to destroy some chaos orbs for a little extra experience (or, possibly, to deny them to the drow), then hurried after the lizards, joining their camp even though the lizards refused to talk to them.
Steve's clumsy attempts at diplomacy nearly led to bloodshed, but Abbey and K'van talked them down. Eventually, they found one lizard who would talk to them -- Ssethra, the druid they'd rescued from slavery to the mind-plague.
Ssethra told them that the village would be moved somewhere else in the jungle -- someplace less visible. Hopefully, the driders wouldn't be motivated enough to hunt them down, and the drow who were sure to follow eventually (as well as the drow already loose in the jungle) wouldn't stumble across them. Abbey asked them to come with the party to seek the surface, but was informed that all the lizardfolk who were mad enough to risk moving through the underdark had already left, and never been heard from again. She was given the silver raven, however, and asked to send it with instructions if the party ever found its way out of the underdark.
The party didn't want to spend the night in the deserted lizardfolk village, so they moved off a ways and found a relatively sheltered alcove in the cavern wall. There Erelthrae enchanted her armor (by sacrificing wealth to her god) and Slee ditched his giant lizard pet for an even gianter bat -- easily big enough to ride, if it could be trained for the purpose (which would take on the order of weeks).
Then the party hurried quickly through the undead lands with 'invisibility to undead' running for each dash across the open areas, spending the night in between in the formians' cave, which had been cleared of spiders and trapped. They disabled the trap and rested there anyway, and were presented by the formians with a bill for the night's lodging and the damage to the trap. Instead of paying, they left a bill of their own, fining the formians for having an unliscenced, unmarked pit trap without safety railings.
The next day they reached the area of pillars, which were inscribed with dwarven runes. Abbey spoke Duergar, but not actual dwarven, and could only make out that the inscriptions were harmless: dedications to some god or person and the name of the area. The pillared hall went on for miles, with the occasional ruined building or scuttling creature, until the party reached a landmark -- a reflecting pool in a tiled alcove, with a wider gap between pillars leading off from it perpendicular to the direction they'd been travelling.
After determining that the pool was not safe to drink or even touch, and that the runes around it were a love poem of some sort, the party headed down the wide, marked path, and were attacked by a group of six grell. They did some damage and paralyzed a couple people (Erelthrae and Slee) but were eventually taken down. Erelthrae cut off a bunch of their tentacles to use as ropes, since they didn't seem to have any other treasure.
Further down the path, the party found a sunlit area full of green grass and trees, with a small wooden temple in the center. The sunlight had no visible source, but it made Erelthrae uncomfortable. Abbey circled the outside looking for exits other than the front door, but found nothing. Slee and Steve approached the front door, and startled a trio of dire weasels, which fled into the building.
The entire party then advanced into the antechamber and shouted 'hello?', and was attacked by three animated piles of bone! Fearing an imminent turn attempt by the cleric, K'van fled deeper into the temple, where he found an ogre being awoken by one of the weasels. The ogre looked at him, and moved into the back room of the temple, and K'van peered in to see him getting a spell cast on him by a satyr playing pan pipes.
Meanwhile, the cleric's turning proved futile -- the piles of skulls and femurs were not undead -- and the party was forced to beat them down physically, which was fairly straightforwards but took a while.
K'van got impatient and rushed into attack the satyr, slashing him open with his sword... but then the ogre's club smashed down on him and reduced him to a pile of bone dust. The ogre and satyr then advanced into the central courtyard, the satyr continuing to cast spells on himself... and were toasted by Steve's fire breath, although the ogre survived.
The weasels and ogre weren't complete pushovers at that point, but their leader was down and about their only tactic was that they knew how to flank... and after all the weasels were dead the ogre couldn't even do that. Both the satyr and ogre were patched up for later interrogation.
Before the party could worry about that, a falling burning branch alerted them to the ancient tree in the center of the courtyard, which had been set alight by Steve's fire-breath and was now burning merrily, threatening to torch the entire building. Erelthrae organized the controlled felling of the burning tree while Steve amused himself clambering through its upper reaches (being immune to fire) and rescued an old hoe that was inexplicably stuck in its branches.
The satyr was awoken, and tried to talk the party into letting him go by freely giving mostly useless information about the history of the shrine and of himself. Abbey recognized him as a fellow tiefling, not a satyr after all -- which meant that he was probably just a bard, and *not* helpless now that his pipes had been taken away. When he burst into song when asked to tell about how he got down into the underdark, Steve wisely kicked him in the nuts and tore out his throat. The ogre was similarly dealt with, and the bodies burnt in the smouldering remains of the ancient elm.
The party gathered all the treasure from the temple -- a temple of Meilikki, apparently, of which the tiefling had claimed to be the resident priest -- and considered leaving immediately, but now that the former owners were dead it seemed like a pleasant place to spend the night, for everyone except the drow, at least.
The party got little rest, however, as the ghostly guardian of the shrine manifested and did harmless ghost tricks, moving the hoe around and whispering in peoples' ears, until Steve decided to fix the problem of the levitating hoe by snapping it in two. At that point, the ghost got pissed, and manifested, shrieking all scary-like and sending Abbey and Steve running out into the darkness.
This woke Erelthrae and Slee, who tried to reason with it. It was beyond reason... "You burned down the holy tree! You broke the holy hoe! You murdered the priest of the temple! LEAVE!" Its horrific gaze clawed at their souls, and they decided that leaving was a good idea.
In the morning, Slee cast 'plant growth' to help the battered but probably still living roots of the great elm recover, and a drow wizard (who'd been attracted by all the flames and commotion, and asked to travel with the party for protection after discovering that Erelthrae was an enemy of the priestesses of Llolth from whom he'd fled long ago) mended the holy hoe, and the party healed up, and rested another night in the shrine, with no further interference from the beyond. Apparently, the ghost was satisfied.
The next day, after hearing the new wizard describe the tribes of duergar lurking deeper in the pillared area, the party decided to turn back towards the land of mist, in which (according to the dead tiefling) the gnomes lived. Another thoroughfare led in the right direction, so they followed it, passing a prison and a bank on the way.
Wait a second, passing a bank? Not a chance! A quick inspection revealed the bank vault to appear to be secure and unlooted, possibly thanks to the symbol inscribed on it, spotted by Abbey's careful (and lucky) eye. The party rested the night to swap spells for an assault on the vault -- wall of stone (from a wand) to cover the glyph, then stone shape to hollow out an opening around the door.
The door was set into the metal wall of the vault itself, of course. Not a problem! Over the course of four days, the party summoned dozens of thoqqua, buffing them with magic fang and bull's strength to help them gradually eat their way through the iron wall of the vault. The whole time, they were pestered and harassed by the wraiths that lived inside the vault, but the ghostly undead didn't seem to want to face the cleric, and a consecrate spell every night kept the party mostly safe... except for Slee's giant bat, which just made all its spot checks and saving throws as the wraiths attempted to kill it every night.
On the fifth day, as they prepared for the final round of thoqquas that would finally open the hole they'd bored wide enough for a person to fit through, Abbey spotted movement outside, and went to investigate. She discovered about a dozen Duergar camped just out of sight, waiting. The bank seemed fairly defensible, so the party decided to go ahead with the robbery and just try to hold the bank against the duergar if they attacked.
last week next week
