Assault on the Graveyard, pt 1
Feb. 27th, 2005 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothToday we had a session of Tom's D+D campaign, which ended up being mostly a protracted assault on a graveyard full of zombies. We were forced to accept the assistance of a bunch of NPCs more than twice our level, which made some of us very unhappy... but then we ended up doing most of the work ourselves. Go figure.
The party rested the night in the inn. There was a commotion in the middle of the night, but as a quick, drowsy look indicated that it was not undead-related, they ignored it and went back to sleep. In the morning, they were summoned to the keep for second breakfast, and the town's local adventurers insisted that if they were going to try to assault the graveyard again, they would have to come with them.
The bright flashes of light they'd seen during the night were, according to scrying, the work of the ghost of a legendary hero -- so, not the source of the undead, but a possible ally, although probably only at night, when the wraiths and other especially fearsome undead would be about. So not knowing exactly what they were looking for, the now somewhat larger party headed around the backside of the graveyard, hoping to avoid the massive hordes of undead they'd had to face trying to fight their way in through the front door.
As they left, they noticed that Ailithir was no longer with them -- she'd taken off in the middle of the night, or something. This was somewhat worrying, but she'd never been especially trustworthy, and her skills were of little use against undead in any case.
The back route turned out not to be particularly unguarded, and after fighting their way through several small groups of undead, they ran into a horde of about three dozen mixed skeletons and zombies, led by a pair of wights. The lesser undead tried to swarm the party, but were turned to dust by Rhiannon and the town's cleric, while two swarms of zombie rats literally swarmed all over, biting and making assorted people nauseous. The wights, fortunately, ran off rather than face the party, though, so there wasn't anything that really posed a serious threat.
The graveyard itself was surrounded by zombies -- hundreds and hundreds of zombies. Thousands. The town's mage sent his familiar to overfly the graveyard, and several likely targets were identified -- a strange woman perched on the wall above a pile of bodies, a large central crypt from which chanting and other strange noises emerged, and a beating heart set up on pedestal, right out in the open. Zanzibar wagered that he could take out the heart without even entering the graveyard, using a potion of levitation they'd looted earlier to get up to where he had line of sight on it, so the party crept up within about a hundred feet of the wall, and the kobold popped up to take his shot.
One shot didn't kill the heart -- and it of course alerted the intelligent undead, or their intelligent masters. A weird floating head with tentacles flew up from the graveyard at high speed. "OMG, INC!" shouted Zanzibar, just before getting blasted out of the sky by a volley of magic missiles.
Well, technically, he wasn't blasted out of the sky, so much as he levitated back down, cast a shield, and hid behind other party members, as the zombies milling near the wall swarmed them. The fighters held them back, and the clerics turned them to dust, while Raiina, Samuel, and Zanzibar fought the head. The head cast various protective spells that had little effect, and tried to dominate Morgan (the chain-guy)... and succeeded, although he didn't have time to give any commands before being killed.
Enough zombies had been cleared away to let the party climb up onto the graveyard wall, where Zanzibar and Raiina resumed fire on the heart. The clerics dusted the pile of zombies that were trying to climb the wall, then the fighters jumped down to engage four wights and a very scary looking skeleton. Zanzibar took the time to pull out a wand of web and trap two of the wights in sticky strands while Raiina finished off the heart -- and all the weak undead dropped down dead, leaving only a few powerful ones -- the wights and the scary skeleton.
The scary skeleton teleported away or disintegrated the last wight (one was turned, two were webbed) and one of the town's fighters somehow, then ran to aid a necromancer who emerged from the building long enough to throw a pair of pottery jars, that exploded into swarms of locusts upon impact. The town's mage tried to trap the necromancer in an Evard's Black Tentacles, but the necromancer dispelled it and retreated indoors, to let his pets annihilate the party.
The party didn't have much left that would affect swarms -- Zanzibar managed to entagle one in a web, and the town's mage failed to trap the other in a wall of ice dome. The swarm resolved itself into what seemed to be a mummy, but while this let it deal crushing blows with a sword, it was still immune to almost everything the party could throw at it -- except for Samuel's burning hands. After a lengthy dance with the mummy dealing out damage and the clerics healing it, the mummy-swarm was finally dispatched, and the fighters rushed towards the central building, where the scary skeleton was still standing guard.
Just as the second mummy broke free of the web...
last session | next session
We had to cut it there, as it was getting late, and Tom's wife was getting antsy.
Now I'm watching 'Alien Siege' that I recorded yesterday... it's kind of stupid. Alien Death Rays so far have been used to kill individual infantry soldiers and blow up unoccupied civilian vehicles... when used against occupied vehicles they fail to make them explode for some reason, instead just sparking impotently against the fiberglass plating. n.n
The party rested the night in the inn. There was a commotion in the middle of the night, but as a quick, drowsy look indicated that it was not undead-related, they ignored it and went back to sleep. In the morning, they were summoned to the keep for second breakfast, and the town's local adventurers insisted that if they were going to try to assault the graveyard again, they would have to come with them.
The bright flashes of light they'd seen during the night were, according to scrying, the work of the ghost of a legendary hero -- so, not the source of the undead, but a possible ally, although probably only at night, when the wraiths and other especially fearsome undead would be about. So not knowing exactly what they were looking for, the now somewhat larger party headed around the backside of the graveyard, hoping to avoid the massive hordes of undead they'd had to face trying to fight their way in through the front door.
As they left, they noticed that Ailithir was no longer with them -- she'd taken off in the middle of the night, or something. This was somewhat worrying, but she'd never been especially trustworthy, and her skills were of little use against undead in any case.
The back route turned out not to be particularly unguarded, and after fighting their way through several small groups of undead, they ran into a horde of about three dozen mixed skeletons and zombies, led by a pair of wights. The lesser undead tried to swarm the party, but were turned to dust by Rhiannon and the town's cleric, while two swarms of zombie rats literally swarmed all over, biting and making assorted people nauseous. The wights, fortunately, ran off rather than face the party, though, so there wasn't anything that really posed a serious threat.
The graveyard itself was surrounded by zombies -- hundreds and hundreds of zombies. Thousands. The town's mage sent his familiar to overfly the graveyard, and several likely targets were identified -- a strange woman perched on the wall above a pile of bodies, a large central crypt from which chanting and other strange noises emerged, and a beating heart set up on pedestal, right out in the open. Zanzibar wagered that he could take out the heart without even entering the graveyard, using a potion of levitation they'd looted earlier to get up to where he had line of sight on it, so the party crept up within about a hundred feet of the wall, and the kobold popped up to take his shot.
One shot didn't kill the heart -- and it of course alerted the intelligent undead, or their intelligent masters. A weird floating head with tentacles flew up from the graveyard at high speed. "OMG, INC!" shouted Zanzibar, just before getting blasted out of the sky by a volley of magic missiles.
Well, technically, he wasn't blasted out of the sky, so much as he levitated back down, cast a shield, and hid behind other party members, as the zombies milling near the wall swarmed them. The fighters held them back, and the clerics turned them to dust, while Raiina, Samuel, and Zanzibar fought the head. The head cast various protective spells that had little effect, and tried to dominate Morgan (the chain-guy)... and succeeded, although he didn't have time to give any commands before being killed.
Enough zombies had been cleared away to let the party climb up onto the graveyard wall, where Zanzibar and Raiina resumed fire on the heart. The clerics dusted the pile of zombies that were trying to climb the wall, then the fighters jumped down to engage four wights and a very scary looking skeleton. Zanzibar took the time to pull out a wand of web and trap two of the wights in sticky strands while Raiina finished off the heart -- and all the weak undead dropped down dead, leaving only a few powerful ones -- the wights and the scary skeleton.
The scary skeleton teleported away or disintegrated the last wight (one was turned, two were webbed) and one of the town's fighters somehow, then ran to aid a necromancer who emerged from the building long enough to throw a pair of pottery jars, that exploded into swarms of locusts upon impact. The town's mage tried to trap the necromancer in an Evard's Black Tentacles, but the necromancer dispelled it and retreated indoors, to let his pets annihilate the party.
The party didn't have much left that would affect swarms -- Zanzibar managed to entagle one in a web, and the town's mage failed to trap the other in a wall of ice dome. The swarm resolved itself into what seemed to be a mummy, but while this let it deal crushing blows with a sword, it was still immune to almost everything the party could throw at it -- except for Samuel's burning hands. After a lengthy dance with the mummy dealing out damage and the clerics healing it, the mummy-swarm was finally dispatched, and the fighters rushed towards the central building, where the scary skeleton was still standing guard.
Just as the second mummy broke free of the web...
last session | next session
We had to cut it there, as it was getting late, and Tom's wife was getting antsy.
Now I'm watching 'Alien Siege' that I recorded yesterday... it's kind of stupid. Alien Death Rays so far have been used to kill individual infantry soldiers and blow up unoccupied civilian vehicles... when used against occupied vehicles they fail to make them explode for some reason, instead just sparking impotently against the fiberglass plating. n.n
