Swamp Castle
Jul. 3rd, 2005 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothToday we had a session of Tom's D+D game, for the first time in... a while. Like a month, I think.
Shawn showed up, and I think his presence made the game better, although he kept making insanely off-color jokes and then playing it off as him 'trying to play like Ed would have', since he was playing... well, not Ed's character, but a random additional character Eric had written up to stand in for Ed for some reason (it wasn't like Ed wasn't making his own changes to the character). Ed wasn't there. Michelle wasn't there, but Eric played her character because, well, playing two characters lets him be the focus of attention more often, I suppose.
I don't really feel like writing this right now, but I'll feel less like writing it if I put it off until I have several stacked up like this again. And I'll feel bad if I skip it. So...
After talking to the druid in town, who didn't really have much useful to say (she repeated the warnings about trolls), and seemed to think that it was the adventurer's own fault for taking a wagon into the swamp that they'd disappeared, they bought a wagon and headed into the swamp. It was okay, though -- the party bought an *amphibious* wagon. Or at least, a rowboat with wheels so that it could be used as a cart, that one of the craftsmen was selling (or renting or something). There was no alchemist's fire for sale in town, so their anti-troll plan involved large quantities of lamp oil, which they purchased split among all the shops in town to avoid possible price gouging.
And sure enough, they ran into trolls. The trolls tried to sink their boat with thrown boulders, but kept missing, and the party's return fire had one of the creatures running for the (far side of the) hills to regenerate. Rhiannon rowed the boat in close enough for Murphy to engage the troll, while Zanzibar flew up into the air zapping with his rays and Raiina waded ashore to chase after the troll running away. Murphy came really close to being ripped in two, but focused fire knocked down the troll before it could finish him off, and Raiina finished off the fleeing troll in a similar fashion ('after getting mauled by it'). Then they beat on the trolls to keep them down until a suitable bonfire could be made to give them a proper cremation.
It took all day to reach the old monastary where the treasure was said to be buried, but they didn't run into any other troubles on the way in. They saw, in the window of one of the towers, two glowing lights like eyes that had to be the 'burning eyes' that the legend spoke of, which would show the way to the treasure. So they decided to investigate that tower first.
As they approached, the lights went out, so Zanzibar flew up to inspect the window to see if they'd been created by some magic spell that might have left traces, or if a creature had been shining them, or whatever. Raiina came up close behind (although she had to take the stairs) to look for tracks...
What they found instead was a trap -- a net fell from above, sweeping Zanzibar off the ledge and down through the fake breakaway floor and into a deep pool of water below, so that he was entangled and in danger of drowning. Raiina, despite being in the middle of the net instead of at the edge, managed to avoid it somehow.
Then, the wisps attacked. It was a long, complicated battle, in which a lot of things were done which were ultimately useless, since the only person who could hit the wisps for effect was Raiina -- they were immune to all magical damage, and no one else had anything physical to do at range. Most of the party was badly wounded... Rhiannon healed herself, Raiina, and Murphy (but not Zanzibar, who'd taken mostly subdual damage, or the foul-mouthed forever-nameless mage who hadn't thought to ask for healing).
After the fight, Raiina spotted a bat watching them mysteriously from the shadows. She yelled out about it to the party, and Zanzibar suggested that it might be the druid they'd talked to in wild shape, so she didn't kill it. It flew off before she could change her mind.
At the bottom of the trap, Zanzibar had seen recently dead bodies, so the party raised the net up out of the water and searched them -- it looked like they were probably the missing adventurers, but any useful loot they might have had was already gone.
At any rate, they advanced further into the monastary, across a rubble-strewn, slippery, vine-tangled floor with multiple deep sinkholes in it. At the far end was an altar, surrounded by zombies... Rhiannon dusted them, but not before their horrific appearance had paralyzed most of the party (except for Rhiannon and the mage), and at any rate they were just a distraction from the real attack, which came from behind in the form of a glitterdust, which blinded Raiina.
At first there was no sign of where the spell had come from [Tom didn't give us spot checks to notice it being cast, and the caster had moved out of line of sight by the time our turn came around afterwards], so people readied actions and such... and soon enough the Naga showed her face, out of one of the holes in the floor. Rhiannon cast a freedom of movement on Murphy to let him pursue, and he did!
It was mostly the nameless mage who took down the naga, in the end, blasting her with spell after spell, but she kept fireballing him right back and eventually killed him, along with nearly killing Zanzibar, who never got a shot off before being dropped (he was paralyzed at the start, then fireballed unconscious because of all the subdual damage. Then fireballed again.) Raiina, blind, took a few shots at the source of the casting that kept slamming into walls she couldn't see (there was lots of rubble), and Murphy leapt into the water to try to chase down the naga, only to be delayed by a horde of pathetically weak zombies until the fight was over.
Afterwards, the party did not mourn the loss of their companion, who they barely knew and didn't like. Rhiannon used her wand of lesser vigor to heal everyone (which made more than half of it used in that one day), and then they went searching for the *treasure* that was supposedly buried there. They found it -- the naga had a pair of diamonds in her stash that were the *real* 'eyes of McTinker', and they found the actual vault which was full of gold and jewelry and artwork, thousands of gold worth. And 500,000 copper, which they decided they were not going to attempt to take back with them. A secret hidden back room was opened, strangely enough, by a telescope found as part of the treasure in the mausoleum... the hell? That was half a week's travel away, and completely unrelated.
All the secret room had in it was a bunch of weird paintings, though. Zanzibar 'blindly activated' one of them, which had a magic aura, but the enchantment on it didn't seem to be something you could activate -- probably some sort of protective magic.
last session | next session
"So, let me get this straight. The naga was luring adventurers into the swamp to eat them, but we found their bodies intact in the pit trap and all their treasure and equipment gone. But all she had on her was the key to the vault that you're saying she never figured out how to open? Where did their loot go? Was she eating their magic items?"
Not that I'm complaining. About that. About facing yet another magic-immune critter (the wisps), well...
About Tom forgetting that I had see invisible up all the time, and therefore would have seen the wisps making themselves invisible and flying up to spring the trap that ALMOST KILLED ME, definately. Grr.
Shawn showed up, and I think his presence made the game better, although he kept making insanely off-color jokes and then playing it off as him 'trying to play like Ed would have', since he was playing... well, not Ed's character, but a random additional character Eric had written up to stand in for Ed for some reason (it wasn't like Ed wasn't making his own changes to the character). Ed wasn't there. Michelle wasn't there, but Eric played her character because, well, playing two characters lets him be the focus of attention more often, I suppose.
I don't really feel like writing this right now, but I'll feel less like writing it if I put it off until I have several stacked up like this again. And I'll feel bad if I skip it. So...
After talking to the druid in town, who didn't really have much useful to say (she repeated the warnings about trolls), and seemed to think that it was the adventurer's own fault for taking a wagon into the swamp that they'd disappeared, they bought a wagon and headed into the swamp. It was okay, though -- the party bought an *amphibious* wagon. Or at least, a rowboat with wheels so that it could be used as a cart, that one of the craftsmen was selling (or renting or something). There was no alchemist's fire for sale in town, so their anti-troll plan involved large quantities of lamp oil, which they purchased split among all the shops in town to avoid possible price gouging.
And sure enough, they ran into trolls. The trolls tried to sink their boat with thrown boulders, but kept missing, and the party's return fire had one of the creatures running for the (far side of the) hills to regenerate. Rhiannon rowed the boat in close enough for Murphy to engage the troll, while Zanzibar flew up into the air zapping with his rays and Raiina waded ashore to chase after the troll running away. Murphy came really close to being ripped in two, but focused fire knocked down the troll before it could finish him off, and Raiina finished off the fleeing troll in a similar fashion ('after getting mauled by it'). Then they beat on the trolls to keep them down until a suitable bonfire could be made to give them a proper cremation.
It took all day to reach the old monastary where the treasure was said to be buried, but they didn't run into any other troubles on the way in. They saw, in the window of one of the towers, two glowing lights like eyes that had to be the 'burning eyes' that the legend spoke of, which would show the way to the treasure. So they decided to investigate that tower first.
As they approached, the lights went out, so Zanzibar flew up to inspect the window to see if they'd been created by some magic spell that might have left traces, or if a creature had been shining them, or whatever. Raiina came up close behind (although she had to take the stairs) to look for tracks...
What they found instead was a trap -- a net fell from above, sweeping Zanzibar off the ledge and down through the fake breakaway floor and into a deep pool of water below, so that he was entangled and in danger of drowning. Raiina, despite being in the middle of the net instead of at the edge, managed to avoid it somehow.
Then, the wisps attacked. It was a long, complicated battle, in which a lot of things were done which were ultimately useless, since the only person who could hit the wisps for effect was Raiina -- they were immune to all magical damage, and no one else had anything physical to do at range. Most of the party was badly wounded... Rhiannon healed herself, Raiina, and Murphy (but not Zanzibar, who'd taken mostly subdual damage, or the foul-mouthed forever-nameless mage who hadn't thought to ask for healing).
After the fight, Raiina spotted a bat watching them mysteriously from the shadows. She yelled out about it to the party, and Zanzibar suggested that it might be the druid they'd talked to in wild shape, so she didn't kill it. It flew off before she could change her mind.
At the bottom of the trap, Zanzibar had seen recently dead bodies, so the party raised the net up out of the water and searched them -- it looked like they were probably the missing adventurers, but any useful loot they might have had was already gone.
At any rate, they advanced further into the monastary, across a rubble-strewn, slippery, vine-tangled floor with multiple deep sinkholes in it. At the far end was an altar, surrounded by zombies... Rhiannon dusted them, but not before their horrific appearance had paralyzed most of the party (except for Rhiannon and the mage), and at any rate they were just a distraction from the real attack, which came from behind in the form of a glitterdust, which blinded Raiina.
At first there was no sign of where the spell had come from [Tom didn't give us spot checks to notice it being cast, and the caster had moved out of line of sight by the time our turn came around afterwards], so people readied actions and such... and soon enough the Naga showed her face, out of one of the holes in the floor. Rhiannon cast a freedom of movement on Murphy to let him pursue, and he did!
It was mostly the nameless mage who took down the naga, in the end, blasting her with spell after spell, but she kept fireballing him right back and eventually killed him, along with nearly killing Zanzibar, who never got a shot off before being dropped (he was paralyzed at the start, then fireballed unconscious because of all the subdual damage. Then fireballed again.) Raiina, blind, took a few shots at the source of the casting that kept slamming into walls she couldn't see (there was lots of rubble), and Murphy leapt into the water to try to chase down the naga, only to be delayed by a horde of pathetically weak zombies until the fight was over.
Afterwards, the party did not mourn the loss of their companion, who they barely knew and didn't like. Rhiannon used her wand of lesser vigor to heal everyone (which made more than half of it used in that one day), and then they went searching for the *treasure* that was supposedly buried there. They found it -- the naga had a pair of diamonds in her stash that were the *real* 'eyes of McTinker', and they found the actual vault which was full of gold and jewelry and artwork, thousands of gold worth. And 500,000 copper, which they decided they were not going to attempt to take back with them. A secret hidden back room was opened, strangely enough, by a telescope found as part of the treasure in the mausoleum... the hell? That was half a week's travel away, and completely unrelated.
All the secret room had in it was a bunch of weird paintings, though. Zanzibar 'blindly activated' one of them, which had a magic aura, but the enchantment on it didn't seem to be something you could activate -- probably some sort of protective magic.
last session | next session
"So, let me get this straight. The naga was luring adventurers into the swamp to eat them, but we found their bodies intact in the pit trap and all their treasure and equipment gone. But all she had on her was the key to the vault that you're saying she never figured out how to open? Where did their loot go? Was she eating their magic items?"
Not that I'm complaining. About that. About facing yet another magic-immune critter (the wisps), well...
About Tom forgetting that I had see invisible up all the time, and therefore would have seen the wisps making themselves invisible and flying up to spring the trap that ALMOST KILLED ME, definately. Grr.
