Ragamoffyn Rampage
Aug. 18th, 2003 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothToday was my Monday (formerly Tuesday) D+D game. The party decided to tackle the cleric's quest first, which led them through a dangerous part of the abandoned mage city and into... a Library. Of doom.
Conner told the party of the quest his god had given him, and since they were counting on his magic to get them off the plane, they decided to tackle it before anything else. May and Conner flew over to scout the city from the air, and quickly located the library the god had told him to retrieve the information from. Its windows and most of its doors were covered in big gobs of what looked like white foam, but didn't seem to have a foamlike consistency, and the front door was guarded by four decrepit brass golems and four swirly masses of sparkly glass and rope and leather, more of which could be seen roaming through the streets all downtown.
The party went back to report, and it was decided that a quick in-and-out raid on the libary was indicated. They took a small fishing boat around the island to approach from the quickest direction, and were attacked by a vicious octopus! But Erdann, the druid, fascinated the creature until they could run away.
They ran into a demon patrol heading for the center of the city. They didn't really have any warning before a quartet of hellcats pounced on them, aided by a Hamatula on a nearby rooftop. Tesarin, another demon hunter from the same village as Caemriss (who'd been dispatched to help Erdann keep an eye on the party, since Caemriss was busy), and a powerful archer, killed the Hamatula in one volley, but was mauled rather badly by the hellcats, which he couldn't see. Erdann in bear form and his wolf could smell them, and May cast 'see invisible' and could see them, then between them and wild swings from the rest of the party they eventually killed the other demons (the last going down to Tesarin's arrows, guided by May's magic missiles, as it tried to flee).
Having broken through demon lines, they entered the deserted center of the city. It was only four blocks to the library, but in that distance they were surrounded and attacked by seven swirly things -- four glittery ones (guttersnipes), two metallic ones (shrapnyls), and one that seemed to have wrapped itself around a halfling that Erdann and Tesarin sort of recognized.
The creatures tried to wrap themselves around the party and take control of them like they had the halfling, but for the most part were unsuccessful. One managed to wrap up Erdann's wolf, but the druid cast a spell to enlarge his wolf beyond the creature's capacity. The last holdout was the wrapped halfling, but eventually the creature enslaving him was picked to bits, leaving him free, if only barely alive from all the damage that had soaked through the covering monster.
The halfling introduced himself as Samrat, from the same village as Erdann and Caemriss and Tesarin (of course -- where else would he be from?), only not of quite as honorable a profession. He'd been trying to sneak into the forbidden area of the city to loot it, when the guttersnipe had jumped him and wrapped him up and taken control of his mind. He agreed to come with the party, since it wouldn't be safe to head back on his own.
Soon they were at the library. The guards out front were fireballed from a distance, and never got within fifty feet of the party. The door itself was glyphed, very obviously -- and when Tesarin tried to shoot the door open with arrows, the glyph was triggered, vanishing the door behind a wall of stone.
Undeterred, Tesarin and Erdann cracked the stone with arrows, and tore it down with magically enhanced claws, until the now-glyphless door was revealed. Worried that the foam and the glyph and all was to keep something in, rather than to keep them out, Samrat volunteered to 'shadow step' inside the building and check it out. No one stopped him.
Inside, his mind was attacked by a strange glyph on a glowing pillar directly in front of the door, and four brass golems fell to bits and swirled towards him as shrapnyls. Throwing off the mental attack, he immediately shadow-stepped back outside.
The lock on the front door was magical, according to Abbey, so May reluctantly used a charge from his wand of Knock, opening it. The party was careful not to look inside, except for Erdann, who expected to be immune to the glyph. He was not, much to his surprise (because it was a creature, and not a mind-affecting spell), but his wolf was (because it could only affect people who could read the glyph). At any rate, he resisted it.
A short battle ensued against the four shrapnyls. They revealed an ability that they were usually too slow to put into play when one exploded in a spray of shrapnel, but even that wasn't terribly impressive. Erdann then walked boldly into the library and covered the glyph with his cloak... triggering an attack by more swirly raggedy things, although these common ragamoffyns were even weaker than the guttersnipes. They wounded the druid a little, but were killed in seconds.
So the party began to explore the library. In a side room they found a rotted, degenerated ragomoffyn near a tiny glyph on a folded piece of paper, which attacked May ineffectually. May decided to store the paper for later. In another closet they found the skeleton of a wizard, who'd burned all his books and scrolls and then taken his own life. His dagger, when touched, triggered a magic mouth that warned against letting the creatures escape, saying they fed on words and minds, and that he knew too much to let them get to him. He also had a silver mirror lying at his feet.
A random book picked from the shelves of the library proved to be totally blank. The party decided not to press their luck by looking at more books, since some of them were probably infected like the fold of paper. In a side room were dozens of what looked like automatic scribes. May decided to ask them to make three copies of one of his spell scrolls, and indeed three of the desks sprang to life... and three yellowing trails of light peeled themselves off a glowy pillar far across the room that the party had been carefully not looking at and sank into the newly written scrolls. May walked over to check one out...
...and failed to resist the mental attack from the glyph on the new scroll. It began to drain his memories, pulled out a 'Teleportation' spell, and teleported him away.
May was teleported to the village, where he focused his mental energies and managed to drive the voracious glyph creature out of his mind! It immediately fled for the village proper, and being incorporeal (and lucky) was not affected by the fireball May flung after it.
When the villagers came to investigate the attack and arson, May explained the situation, and they mobilized to track down the creature. Its trail was followed to the village elder's house, specifically to his library, where what little was left from the knowledge of the ancient wizards had been passed from generation to generation...
May wanted to burn it all, but the elder wanted to save what he could, and as a compromise May made a rope trick and helped the villagers load all the books into it, so that at least the creature couldn't spread any further. He then teleported back to the library, so that his friends wouldn't be too worried about his disappearance.
Oh, May also burned the little slip of paper with a small, weak glyph on it, and magic missiled the glyph creature that the fire set free. It died easily... but then, it was a small, weak one.
Meanwhile, in the library, the party had searched most of the ground and upper levels, finding more lifeless golems and lurking glyphs. They did manage to figure out that looking at glyphs through a mirror was safe, as they were assymetrical and the reverse forms were not dangerous. The upper level had a pair of iron golems, and a magic mouth to warn visitors without passes to stay away from the 'magic section' if they didn't want to be attacked. They decided not to press their luck that the iron golems were as lifeless as the others they'd seen up to that point.
May rejoined them just as they were checking the last remaining door, which revealed a staircase down into the basement. Maybe down there they'd find the great store of information which Oghma had sent his priest to recover.
last week next week
Luis' connection was really, really, really bad. Next week he's going to try a long-distance conference call... maybe then we'll at least be able to hear him.
The monsters this week were mostly constructs and elementals, so the rogue-based people (Luis playing Abbey and Simon playing Samrat) weren't the happiest campers in the world.
And I had (and still have) a horrible headache through the whole thing. Maybe it's from chewing on a bit of what used to be a pen cap all day. v.v
Conner told the party of the quest his god had given him, and since they were counting on his magic to get them off the plane, they decided to tackle it before anything else. May and Conner flew over to scout the city from the air, and quickly located the library the god had told him to retrieve the information from. Its windows and most of its doors were covered in big gobs of what looked like white foam, but didn't seem to have a foamlike consistency, and the front door was guarded by four decrepit brass golems and four swirly masses of sparkly glass and rope and leather, more of which could be seen roaming through the streets all downtown.
The party went back to report, and it was decided that a quick in-and-out raid on the libary was indicated. They took a small fishing boat around the island to approach from the quickest direction, and were attacked by a vicious octopus! But Erdann, the druid, fascinated the creature until they could run away.
They ran into a demon patrol heading for the center of the city. They didn't really have any warning before a quartet of hellcats pounced on them, aided by a Hamatula on a nearby rooftop. Tesarin, another demon hunter from the same village as Caemriss (who'd been dispatched to help Erdann keep an eye on the party, since Caemriss was busy), and a powerful archer, killed the Hamatula in one volley, but was mauled rather badly by the hellcats, which he couldn't see. Erdann in bear form and his wolf could smell them, and May cast 'see invisible' and could see them, then between them and wild swings from the rest of the party they eventually killed the other demons (the last going down to Tesarin's arrows, guided by May's magic missiles, as it tried to flee).
Having broken through demon lines, they entered the deserted center of the city. It was only four blocks to the library, but in that distance they were surrounded and attacked by seven swirly things -- four glittery ones (guttersnipes), two metallic ones (shrapnyls), and one that seemed to have wrapped itself around a halfling that Erdann and Tesarin sort of recognized.
The creatures tried to wrap themselves around the party and take control of them like they had the halfling, but for the most part were unsuccessful. One managed to wrap up Erdann's wolf, but the druid cast a spell to enlarge his wolf beyond the creature's capacity. The last holdout was the wrapped halfling, but eventually the creature enslaving him was picked to bits, leaving him free, if only barely alive from all the damage that had soaked through the covering monster.
The halfling introduced himself as Samrat, from the same village as Erdann and Caemriss and Tesarin (of course -- where else would he be from?), only not of quite as honorable a profession. He'd been trying to sneak into the forbidden area of the city to loot it, when the guttersnipe had jumped him and wrapped him up and taken control of his mind. He agreed to come with the party, since it wouldn't be safe to head back on his own.
Soon they were at the library. The guards out front were fireballed from a distance, and never got within fifty feet of the party. The door itself was glyphed, very obviously -- and when Tesarin tried to shoot the door open with arrows, the glyph was triggered, vanishing the door behind a wall of stone.
Undeterred, Tesarin and Erdann cracked the stone with arrows, and tore it down with magically enhanced claws, until the now-glyphless door was revealed. Worried that the foam and the glyph and all was to keep something in, rather than to keep them out, Samrat volunteered to 'shadow step' inside the building and check it out. No one stopped him.
Inside, his mind was attacked by a strange glyph on a glowing pillar directly in front of the door, and four brass golems fell to bits and swirled towards him as shrapnyls. Throwing off the mental attack, he immediately shadow-stepped back outside.
The lock on the front door was magical, according to Abbey, so May reluctantly used a charge from his wand of Knock, opening it. The party was careful not to look inside, except for Erdann, who expected to be immune to the glyph. He was not, much to his surprise (because it was a creature, and not a mind-affecting spell), but his wolf was (because it could only affect people who could read the glyph). At any rate, he resisted it.
A short battle ensued against the four shrapnyls. They revealed an ability that they were usually too slow to put into play when one exploded in a spray of shrapnel, but even that wasn't terribly impressive. Erdann then walked boldly into the library and covered the glyph with his cloak... triggering an attack by more swirly raggedy things, although these common ragamoffyns were even weaker than the guttersnipes. They wounded the druid a little, but were killed in seconds.
So the party began to explore the library. In a side room they found a rotted, degenerated ragomoffyn near a tiny glyph on a folded piece of paper, which attacked May ineffectually. May decided to store the paper for later. In another closet they found the skeleton of a wizard, who'd burned all his books and scrolls and then taken his own life. His dagger, when touched, triggered a magic mouth that warned against letting the creatures escape, saying they fed on words and minds, and that he knew too much to let them get to him. He also had a silver mirror lying at his feet.
A random book picked from the shelves of the library proved to be totally blank. The party decided not to press their luck by looking at more books, since some of them were probably infected like the fold of paper. In a side room were dozens of what looked like automatic scribes. May decided to ask them to make three copies of one of his spell scrolls, and indeed three of the desks sprang to life... and three yellowing trails of light peeled themselves off a glowy pillar far across the room that the party had been carefully not looking at and sank into the newly written scrolls. May walked over to check one out...
...and failed to resist the mental attack from the glyph on the new scroll. It began to drain his memories, pulled out a 'Teleportation' spell, and teleported him away.
May was teleported to the village, where he focused his mental energies and managed to drive the voracious glyph creature out of his mind! It immediately fled for the village proper, and being incorporeal (and lucky) was not affected by the fireball May flung after it.
When the villagers came to investigate the attack and arson, May explained the situation, and they mobilized to track down the creature. Its trail was followed to the village elder's house, specifically to his library, where what little was left from the knowledge of the ancient wizards had been passed from generation to generation...
May wanted to burn it all, but the elder wanted to save what he could, and as a compromise May made a rope trick and helped the villagers load all the books into it, so that at least the creature couldn't spread any further. He then teleported back to the library, so that his friends wouldn't be too worried about his disappearance.
Oh, May also burned the little slip of paper with a small, weak glyph on it, and magic missiled the glyph creature that the fire set free. It died easily... but then, it was a small, weak one.
Meanwhile, in the library, the party had searched most of the ground and upper levels, finding more lifeless golems and lurking glyphs. They did manage to figure out that looking at glyphs through a mirror was safe, as they were assymetrical and the reverse forms were not dangerous. The upper level had a pair of iron golems, and a magic mouth to warn visitors without passes to stay away from the 'magic section' if they didn't want to be attacked. They decided not to press their luck that the iron golems were as lifeless as the others they'd seen up to that point.
May rejoined them just as they were checking the last remaining door, which revealed a staircase down into the basement. Maybe down there they'd find the great store of information which Oghma had sent his priest to recover.
last week next week
Luis' connection was really, really, really bad. Next week he's going to try a long-distance conference call... maybe then we'll at least be able to hear him.
The monsters this week were mostly constructs and elementals, so the rogue-based people (Luis playing Abbey and Simon playing Samrat) weren't the happiest campers in the world.
And I had (and still have) a horrible headache through the whole thing. Maybe it's from chewing on a bit of what used to be a pen cap all day. v.v
