Down, down, run around...
Nov. 21st, 2004 11:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothToday we had another session of Tom's body-swapping demon game. We fought masses of weak enemies and insidious traps, that sapped our resources while bringing us scarcely closer to any of our goals. Except that we turned Erik's character's real body into a turtle. An evil, spellcasting turtle.
The party continued to search the top interior level of the tower for the harpy/bard's equipment, but only managed to find more shadows, which only lived for a single round, but in that round managed to drain a total of 19 strength from assorted party members. Having only real restorations handy, and every indication that more shadows and vampires lay in their future, the cleric Colleen was asked not to use them just yet.
They also found a giant undead ooze that clung to the people standing near the door when it was (breifly) opened, and resisted all attempts to damage it or scrape it off. At first the acid it burned into the marilith/paladin and energy draining/barbarian did nothing to their demonic bodies, but neither was completely immune to acid, and the damage kept building each round, as attempt after useless attempt was made to get rid of it. Eventually, the cleric realized that the ooze was a type of undead, and after using cure spells on it failed to work, the third turning attempt gave the afflicted another save, and they managed to throw off the effects before actually dying. [and about two rounds before the ooze trap would have stopped on its own, the DM informed us.]
[This episode was extremely frustrating because of its extreme illogic -- the ONLY thing that did anything to the ooze was a difficult turning attempt -- the over-levelled, turning-centric cleric NPC needed to roll a 16 to succeed. Basically, it was built to resist anything the party could possibly do to stop it with no explanation of why it would resist such things, then stop on its own for, again, no apparent reason. I want to hurt the person who wrote up that trap.]
The next level down they didn't spend much time on, as the pseudo-dragon familiar remembered the turns to take. They did have a lot of trouble proceeding down the correct route, however. The first obstacle was a hallway full of sarcophogi. The pseudo-dragon remembered, incorrectly, that it was one of the sarcophagi on the ends that they had to open, but the first had a powerful mummy monk with spectre cohorts, and the second had a blast of fire that, luckily, none of the party was especially hurt by, being (for the most part) demons.
So, after triggering every possible trap and encounter in the room, they finally found the actual exit door, which led to another hallway, at the end of which was the ranger/succubus's real body, pretending not to notice them. The harpy/bard flew up and Suggested she surrender and let them take her alive, but before she could do that, the druid (in bear form) walked down the hallway and triggered the trap she'd been trying to lead them into, which opened the entire hallway into a razored chute out the side of the tower. The druid got sliced up by the razors, but was able to shift into a flying form before he hit ground. The demon in the ranger's body, too busy surrendering to leap to the side like she'd planned, fell to her extreme wounding. The druid left her unconscious body tied up at the top of the tower with the charmed not-a-bard and the dominated not-a-paladin, and brought down the equipment for the ranger/succubus to use. He then changed back into his demon form (not wanting to be a bird indoors), and rejoined the rest of the party, who'd spotted and marked the not-all-that-well-hidden pressure plate and moved on.
On the next level down, they spotted and hopped over another chute trap, then ran into a bunch of cleaning monkeys, which they carefully avoided disturbing. In the next room, they found the hydra/sorcrer's body, hard at work doing something really disgusting to a cauldron full of goop. The demon/druid rushed in and turned the enemy into a turtle, and the turtle immediately used the spell-like ability it had regained to dimension door away to get help, leaving the party to fight off his undead minions. As they finished off the Mohrg (a skeleton with guts and a paralyzing tongue) and Forsaken Shell (a pathetic bit of discarded skin that presumably had some attack mode that it failed to ever use successfully), the cleaning monkeys attacked, and were slaughtered.
But while the party was waiting for the last monkey, the monkey leader, to fight its way out through a wall of ice, a group of vampire spawn rushed at them down a corridor they hadn't explored yet. The sorcerer/hydra put up a seven foot thick wall of ice to impede their progress, and they finished off the monkey. They headed back to check a door they'd bypassed near the stairs, to make sure it wasn't another way around the wall, and were attacked from behind by the vampires again!
The vampires intentionally triggered the chute trap the party had avoided, but while several of the party were caught in the area of the trap, no one fell all the way out of the tower -- most dodged away in time, and the harpy/bard caught the cleric before she could slide far. The vampires rushed to attack, and managed to drain another level from the cleric (who was already down a couple from the spectres back on the level above), but were all killed regardless.
The hydra/sorcerer could see invisible, and saw an invisible acid-dripping undead thing escape through a tree rune next to the stairs -- he'd noticed tree runes like it before, but until then hadn't been able to figure out what they did. Between him and the bard, they decided that the reason they couldn't activate the portal runes was that they lacked some key, so they traipsed upstairs to find the vampires' coffins and stake them -- but the vampires had nothing like a key on their persons.
By that time, the seven foot thick wall of stone was down, so they headed past it and found stairs leading down. The pseudodragon familiar told them that the machine they were seeking was another level down, so they headed downstairs, but not before a booming voice sneered at their impudence and threatened to kill them.
On the next level, they passed through a suspiciously ash-filled (but empty and untrapped) room, and were attacked by more monkeys -- sort of. Instead of fighting, the monkeys ran away to wake up a bunch of wights. The party chased after them and beat most of the monkeys and wights to death in a confusing corridor battle -- a few escaped down a hallway, which was blocked off with another seven foot thick wall of ice. The party searched the door the wights had been guarding, but it led nowhere -- just to an empty room. Apparently, the wights had been only pretending to stand guard over something important, and were actually just being stored in a closet for emergencies.
Unfortunately, this meant the party was trapped behind its own wall of ice for nine more minutes, while the enemies had plenty of time to prepare for their arrival, and might even use the tree symbols (which the party had been unable to destroy) to appear behind them. Yay!
last session | next session
The party continued to search the top interior level of the tower for the harpy/bard's equipment, but only managed to find more shadows, which only lived for a single round, but in that round managed to drain a total of 19 strength from assorted party members. Having only real restorations handy, and every indication that more shadows and vampires lay in their future, the cleric Colleen was asked not to use them just yet.
They also found a giant undead ooze that clung to the people standing near the door when it was (breifly) opened, and resisted all attempts to damage it or scrape it off. At first the acid it burned into the marilith/paladin and energy draining/barbarian did nothing to their demonic bodies, but neither was completely immune to acid, and the damage kept building each round, as attempt after useless attempt was made to get rid of it. Eventually, the cleric realized that the ooze was a type of undead, and after using cure spells on it failed to work, the third turning attempt gave the afflicted another save, and they managed to throw off the effects before actually dying. [and about two rounds before the ooze trap would have stopped on its own, the DM informed us.]
[This episode was extremely frustrating because of its extreme illogic -- the ONLY thing that did anything to the ooze was a difficult turning attempt -- the over-levelled, turning-centric cleric NPC needed to roll a 16 to succeed. Basically, it was built to resist anything the party could possibly do to stop it with no explanation of why it would resist such things, then stop on its own for, again, no apparent reason. I want to hurt the person who wrote up that trap.]
The next level down they didn't spend much time on, as the pseudo-dragon familiar remembered the turns to take. They did have a lot of trouble proceeding down the correct route, however. The first obstacle was a hallway full of sarcophogi. The pseudo-dragon remembered, incorrectly, that it was one of the sarcophagi on the ends that they had to open, but the first had a powerful mummy monk with spectre cohorts, and the second had a blast of fire that, luckily, none of the party was especially hurt by, being (for the most part) demons.
So, after triggering every possible trap and encounter in the room, they finally found the actual exit door, which led to another hallway, at the end of which was the ranger/succubus's real body, pretending not to notice them. The harpy/bard flew up and Suggested she surrender and let them take her alive, but before she could do that, the druid (in bear form) walked down the hallway and triggered the trap she'd been trying to lead them into, which opened the entire hallway into a razored chute out the side of the tower. The druid got sliced up by the razors, but was able to shift into a flying form before he hit ground. The demon in the ranger's body, too busy surrendering to leap to the side like she'd planned, fell to her extreme wounding. The druid left her unconscious body tied up at the top of the tower with the charmed not-a-bard and the dominated not-a-paladin, and brought down the equipment for the ranger/succubus to use. He then changed back into his demon form (not wanting to be a bird indoors), and rejoined the rest of the party, who'd spotted and marked the not-all-that-well-hidden pressure plate and moved on.
On the next level down, they spotted and hopped over another chute trap, then ran into a bunch of cleaning monkeys, which they carefully avoided disturbing. In the next room, they found the hydra/sorcrer's body, hard at work doing something really disgusting to a cauldron full of goop. The demon/druid rushed in and turned the enemy into a turtle, and the turtle immediately used the spell-like ability it had regained to dimension door away to get help, leaving the party to fight off his undead minions. As they finished off the Mohrg (a skeleton with guts and a paralyzing tongue) and Forsaken Shell (a pathetic bit of discarded skin that presumably had some attack mode that it failed to ever use successfully), the cleaning monkeys attacked, and were slaughtered.
But while the party was waiting for the last monkey, the monkey leader, to fight its way out through a wall of ice, a group of vampire spawn rushed at them down a corridor they hadn't explored yet. The sorcerer/hydra put up a seven foot thick wall of ice to impede their progress, and they finished off the monkey. They headed back to check a door they'd bypassed near the stairs, to make sure it wasn't another way around the wall, and were attacked from behind by the vampires again!
The vampires intentionally triggered the chute trap the party had avoided, but while several of the party were caught in the area of the trap, no one fell all the way out of the tower -- most dodged away in time, and the harpy/bard caught the cleric before she could slide far. The vampires rushed to attack, and managed to drain another level from the cleric (who was already down a couple from the spectres back on the level above), but were all killed regardless.
The hydra/sorcerer could see invisible, and saw an invisible acid-dripping undead thing escape through a tree rune next to the stairs -- he'd noticed tree runes like it before, but until then hadn't been able to figure out what they did. Between him and the bard, they decided that the reason they couldn't activate the portal runes was that they lacked some key, so they traipsed upstairs to find the vampires' coffins and stake them -- but the vampires had nothing like a key on their persons.
By that time, the seven foot thick wall of stone was down, so they headed past it and found stairs leading down. The pseudodragon familiar told them that the machine they were seeking was another level down, so they headed downstairs, but not before a booming voice sneered at their impudence and threatened to kill them.
On the next level, they passed through a suspiciously ash-filled (but empty and untrapped) room, and were attacked by more monkeys -- sort of. Instead of fighting, the monkeys ran away to wake up a bunch of wights. The party chased after them and beat most of the monkeys and wights to death in a confusing corridor battle -- a few escaped down a hallway, which was blocked off with another seven foot thick wall of ice. The party searched the door the wights had been guarding, but it led nowhere -- just to an empty room. Apparently, the wights had been only pretending to stand guard over something important, and were actually just being stored in a closet for emergencies.
Unfortunately, this meant the party was trapped behind its own wall of ice for nine more minutes, while the enemies had plenty of time to prepare for their arrival, and might even use the tree symbols (which the party had been unable to destroy) to appear behind them. Yay!
last session | next session
