Disaster and Disrespect
Nov. 23rd, 2004 12:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight we had a session of Jeff's Darksun D+D game. We fought a seige badly, but somehow managed to win without anyone going insane or losing an eye or anything, and despite losing half the people we were supposed to protect, were retained for another quite similar job.
The party's grandiose plans for a stockade lined with slingers looked rather pathetic in the light of day -- there just wasn't that much wood or labor to go around. But when Laika's scouting showed the enemy approaching, the party took their places regardless, layering themselves with resistances and defenses and preparing for their approach.
Unfortunately, the Gith had almost as many psions as the party had feared, and committed six to the attack. That was plenty to vaporize most of the defenses (not to mention quite a few defenders) before their foot troops even got into range. Saurian and April patched the hole with an energy wall and some Evard's Black Tentacles, and the vanguard was indeed chilled and grappled, but the psions just dispelled it and fireballed the remaining slingers.
Saurian put up another energy wall, looping it around and around through the melee, and *trying* to hit more enemies than friends, but that too was quickly dispelled -- and now the enemy psions were pissed. They blasted the three party casters, who'd gathered in the door of the temple for more convenient fleeing in terror (and to stay out of the melee that was quickly filling the makeshift courtyard) with a total of five energy balls, nearly (but not quite) killing them, and wiping out even more allies.
With that, Tenpeg called the retreat, and the survivors fled into the temple, with April stone-shaping the door shut behind them. The artisans had managed to withstand the enemy's assault for *almost* twenty seconds.
"NOW is it desperate enough?" April asked, and Tenpegs agreed that indeed it was, and gave them permission to go down into the basement of the temple. After using most of the rest of their spells and power points to heal themselves, the party headed down.
The spirits didn't stop them like they had before -- instead, they waited until the party had gotten a little further into the crypts before acting. When the party spotted and decided not to loot the vast treasure of metal weapons and gems, the spirits appeared in a scary foggy mist, and cursed them for thinking about it.
Past that was a lead sealed door, which the party bypassed with a dimension door so as not to break the seal -- a useless gesture, since there turned out to be a melted hole bypassing it. In the next room were about fifty skeletons, who demonstrated the power of the curse by somehow hitting Laika for maximum damage on every attempt -- Laika survived one round of that, and then Saurian put up a wall of fire that the mindless skeletons marched through, dying in the process.
Since turning around and leaving would just leave them horribly cursed, they had no choice but to press on. The next room had a giant mirror with one small patch that reflected nightmares instead of reality. Passing through that section sent the party to a magically dark and silent maze -- to a *random point* in the magically dark and silent maze. It took a long, long time for them all to find their way to the far end, where a small lit section of hallway ended in a door sealed with a glowing rune.
April put her hand to the door, and after checking her alignment, it opened, and there in the room beyond was the item of power the Gith were attacking the temple to find. It was very, very obviously an evil, intelligent magical rock, which slavered for blood and promised to destroy all the party's enemies if they'd only pick it up and let it FEED...
So April picked it up, and they dimension doored to the top of the temple. The Gith were busy wafting smoke from a bonfire into the temple to smother the defenders, through the cracks April had somehow not sealed after all in the big door. April held up the rock and ordered it to feed on the enemy psions, ten of whom were gathered around a command tent discussing the seige -- so it meteor-swarmed them, then fireballed them, then fireballed some other people, then put up some walls of fire... and then the Gith started running the hell away.
April tried to put down the rock, but it wouldn't let her -- it sucked out some of her charisma, and continued to pelt and blast the fleeing Gith. Luckily, however, April's Protection From Evil (which she'd put up before touching the rock) let her quickly throw off its influence, and she dimension-doored back to its storage chamber and set it down.
For saving the temple from the Gith, the spirits removed the curse on April. It took some haggling to get them to remove the curse from the others, but in the end they agreed to. The artisans had more survivors than the disastrous battle had suggested there'd be -- the Gith had been taking prisoners to sell as slaves -- and so enough survived to earn the party their bonus, in addition to 220 metal spear tips, and a couple powerful magical items from the psions' corpses.
The 100 or so suriving Gith kept running, but the party and the artisans didn't make chase right away. For one thing, they needed to run to the nearby city to sell the spear tips and convert them into useful magical items, like any adventurers -- using phantom steeds they managed to do this in a little over 24 hours, while the artisans prepared themselves to form an expeditionary force.
The artisans wanted the party to accompany them, promising them half the proceeds of the iron mine that rumor said the Gith had (and why else would they have had so many steel spears?) That was too much money to pass up, and so once they were rested and such, they set out -- 100 troops of questionable quality, and the four party members. They stopped first at the Gith's erstwhile camp, which was deserted, but there they picked up the trail, and started following it south.
After days of travel through the desert, they ran from a 150-foot long megapede, then took shelted from an approaching storm in a deserted cave in the lee of a rock outcropping. Somehow, even those set on watch drifted to sleep...
They awoke with the land strangely changed -- the storm had died down, but the sand was jet black now, and the horizon lined with a sinister red glow. Laika tried to use 'know direction and location', but it gave him no results -- which made no sense. Those who awoke first woke up the others to see the strangeness.
As everyone milled around trying to figure out what was going on, the wind started to pick up again, and the sandstorm returned... and as visibility vanished to nothing, horrible death screams started coming from the storm! The party charged through the sand, but always arrived too late, finding only dead bodies, torn limb from limb... until finally they came upon the creature killing all the artisans -- a massive black towering creature, seemingly made of sand.
The thing was incorporeal, and did damage to power points as well as physical, but enough of the party's spells and attacks hit it to take it down before it seriously hurt anyone else. As it screamed and dissolved... everyone woke up. For real, this time.
Well, not *everyone* -- those who'd been killed in the dream were still asleep, comatose in fact. And as they were discussing how stupid it would be to stay and finish the rest period next to the no-doubt haunted cave, some Gith attacked.
It was a relatively small band of Gith, at least -- thirty warriors, backed up by three psions. It wasn't even really a contest -- the party took down the psions, and the army of artisans the warriors, without suffering even a single loss. One of the psions tried to run, but didn't get far -- he couldn't run faster than Cypher could dimension door.
So, after the Gith -- who had to have been expecting the entire army to be comatose, unless they were just totally stupid -- were finished, the comatose victims were tied to the baggage train, and the army-ish thing continued on south, towards the promise of riches and slaughter.
last week | next weel
The part under the temple was kind of frustrating -- we hadn't really done anything to warrant the curse, but it was apparently required by the module. And when we decided that this was the last straw, and that we'd just leave and go to Tyr to get this stupid curse removed, it was revealed to us as 'common sense' that a normal remove curse wouldn't *possibly* work to remove a curse. Yeeeah. Talk about railroading.
The party's grandiose plans for a stockade lined with slingers looked rather pathetic in the light of day -- there just wasn't that much wood or labor to go around. But when Laika's scouting showed the enemy approaching, the party took their places regardless, layering themselves with resistances and defenses and preparing for their approach.
Unfortunately, the Gith had almost as many psions as the party had feared, and committed six to the attack. That was plenty to vaporize most of the defenses (not to mention quite a few defenders) before their foot troops even got into range. Saurian and April patched the hole with an energy wall and some Evard's Black Tentacles, and the vanguard was indeed chilled and grappled, but the psions just dispelled it and fireballed the remaining slingers.
Saurian put up another energy wall, looping it around and around through the melee, and *trying* to hit more enemies than friends, but that too was quickly dispelled -- and now the enemy psions were pissed. They blasted the three party casters, who'd gathered in the door of the temple for more convenient fleeing in terror (and to stay out of the melee that was quickly filling the makeshift courtyard) with a total of five energy balls, nearly (but not quite) killing them, and wiping out even more allies.
With that, Tenpeg called the retreat, and the survivors fled into the temple, with April stone-shaping the door shut behind them. The artisans had managed to withstand the enemy's assault for *almost* twenty seconds.
"NOW is it desperate enough?" April asked, and Tenpegs agreed that indeed it was, and gave them permission to go down into the basement of the temple. After using most of the rest of their spells and power points to heal themselves, the party headed down.
The spirits didn't stop them like they had before -- instead, they waited until the party had gotten a little further into the crypts before acting. When the party spotted and decided not to loot the vast treasure of metal weapons and gems, the spirits appeared in a scary foggy mist, and cursed them for thinking about it.
Past that was a lead sealed door, which the party bypassed with a dimension door so as not to break the seal -- a useless gesture, since there turned out to be a melted hole bypassing it. In the next room were about fifty skeletons, who demonstrated the power of the curse by somehow hitting Laika for maximum damage on every attempt -- Laika survived one round of that, and then Saurian put up a wall of fire that the mindless skeletons marched through, dying in the process.
Since turning around and leaving would just leave them horribly cursed, they had no choice but to press on. The next room had a giant mirror with one small patch that reflected nightmares instead of reality. Passing through that section sent the party to a magically dark and silent maze -- to a *random point* in the magically dark and silent maze. It took a long, long time for them all to find their way to the far end, where a small lit section of hallway ended in a door sealed with a glowing rune.
April put her hand to the door, and after checking her alignment, it opened, and there in the room beyond was the item of power the Gith were attacking the temple to find. It was very, very obviously an evil, intelligent magical rock, which slavered for blood and promised to destroy all the party's enemies if they'd only pick it up and let it FEED...
So April picked it up, and they dimension doored to the top of the temple. The Gith were busy wafting smoke from a bonfire into the temple to smother the defenders, through the cracks April had somehow not sealed after all in the big door. April held up the rock and ordered it to feed on the enemy psions, ten of whom were gathered around a command tent discussing the seige -- so it meteor-swarmed them, then fireballed them, then fireballed some other people, then put up some walls of fire... and then the Gith started running the hell away.
April tried to put down the rock, but it wouldn't let her -- it sucked out some of her charisma, and continued to pelt and blast the fleeing Gith. Luckily, however, April's Protection From Evil (which she'd put up before touching the rock) let her quickly throw off its influence, and she dimension-doored back to its storage chamber and set it down.
For saving the temple from the Gith, the spirits removed the curse on April. It took some haggling to get them to remove the curse from the others, but in the end they agreed to. The artisans had more survivors than the disastrous battle had suggested there'd be -- the Gith had been taking prisoners to sell as slaves -- and so enough survived to earn the party their bonus, in addition to 220 metal spear tips, and a couple powerful magical items from the psions' corpses.
The 100 or so suriving Gith kept running, but the party and the artisans didn't make chase right away. For one thing, they needed to run to the nearby city to sell the spear tips and convert them into useful magical items, like any adventurers -- using phantom steeds they managed to do this in a little over 24 hours, while the artisans prepared themselves to form an expeditionary force.
The artisans wanted the party to accompany them, promising them half the proceeds of the iron mine that rumor said the Gith had (and why else would they have had so many steel spears?) That was too much money to pass up, and so once they were rested and such, they set out -- 100 troops of questionable quality, and the four party members. They stopped first at the Gith's erstwhile camp, which was deserted, but there they picked up the trail, and started following it south.
After days of travel through the desert, they ran from a 150-foot long megapede, then took shelted from an approaching storm in a deserted cave in the lee of a rock outcropping. Somehow, even those set on watch drifted to sleep...
They awoke with the land strangely changed -- the storm had died down, but the sand was jet black now, and the horizon lined with a sinister red glow. Laika tried to use 'know direction and location', but it gave him no results -- which made no sense. Those who awoke first woke up the others to see the strangeness.
As everyone milled around trying to figure out what was going on, the wind started to pick up again, and the sandstorm returned... and as visibility vanished to nothing, horrible death screams started coming from the storm! The party charged through the sand, but always arrived too late, finding only dead bodies, torn limb from limb... until finally they came upon the creature killing all the artisans -- a massive black towering creature, seemingly made of sand.
The thing was incorporeal, and did damage to power points as well as physical, but enough of the party's spells and attacks hit it to take it down before it seriously hurt anyone else. As it screamed and dissolved... everyone woke up. For real, this time.
Well, not *everyone* -- those who'd been killed in the dream were still asleep, comatose in fact. And as they were discussing how stupid it would be to stay and finish the rest period next to the no-doubt haunted cave, some Gith attacked.
It was a relatively small band of Gith, at least -- thirty warriors, backed up by three psions. It wasn't even really a contest -- the party took down the psions, and the army of artisans the warriors, without suffering even a single loss. One of the psions tried to run, but didn't get far -- he couldn't run faster than Cypher could dimension door.
So, after the Gith -- who had to have been expecting the entire army to be comatose, unless they were just totally stupid -- were finished, the comatose victims were tied to the baggage train, and the army-ish thing continued on south, towards the promise of riches and slaughter.
last week | next weel
The part under the temple was kind of frustrating -- we hadn't really done anything to warrant the curse, but it was apparently required by the module. And when we decided that this was the last straw, and that we'd just leave and go to Tyr to get this stupid curse removed, it was revealed to us as 'common sense' that a normal remove curse wouldn't *possibly* work to remove a curse. Yeeeah. Talk about railroading.
