Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
The spell now says that you fall 60 ft a round for 1 round per level. Syl is a 2nd level sorcerer, and as she knew she was something like 3-400 ft up at the time she delayed casting a smidgin.
Complete pain for them to lose the fly scroll, and even though they don't have Supertrajan any more, I'm sure plain ole Trajan will see them proud!
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
The next morning, each of them has had the same nightmares again – common themes seem to be emerging – possibly that each of them is being warned about a choice that may come to them, and they will be horrifically doomed if they choose the wrong way.
Still, that’s dreams and it is time for real life. None of the spellcasters has had their sleep so badly disturbed that they can’t concentrate to prepare their spells, and fully armed they decide to set off towards the old mine – that was where Othic and other old-timers had seen the dragon before.
Leaving their horses at the inn, they walk up the riverside track to the old mine. At one point Syl notices apparent tracks and signs of a scuffle just off the track to one side – there are clear marks of large biped dog-paws, and a small clay sculpture of Steeple Mountain (?). M’ir once more opens his mind to the past in this area and while he concentrates he can see the ghostly forms of gnolls (DMs note: the adventure uses goblins, but on advice from PC on scaling the adventure up I upgraded them to gnolls – with increased class levels too) holding down and tying up a small child, before dashing off into the forest. One of the forms hangs back, builds the little clay sculpture and then continues after the others.
With a better idea of who their foes are, the company continue up the track to the old mine head. Overgrown wreckage surrounds the top of the shaft which has been sealed with a plate of copper. This plate has been levered up at one side though, and a knotted rope from a nearby boulder snakes down into the damp darkness below.
Azrin picks up a stone and calls upon Asura to shine his light upon it, and in the light so produced M’ir quickly climbs down the rope. There is a loud roaring sound of fast-moving water from below, but he finds a fragile wooden platform built across the shaft which he alights upon.
Lighting his bull’s-eye lantern he can see a passage leading off into a chamber of some sort. The others start following him down the rope, but since it starts creaking ominously once two people are on it, they quickly move off the platform and join M’ir at the threshold of the old mining room.
There is a faint skittering sound, and hordes of inch-long beetles with shiny bluish-green carapaces scuttle away from the light and into crevices or further away in the room, which is filled with old and decrepit mining paraphernalia. Disturbed patches of greenish and orange slime on the floor reveal to Syl’s expert eye that some people have been through here within the last week – and there are some older tracks of larger creatures – probably the gnolls.
Beyond this room is a large irregular cavern, the ceiling supported by pit props and clearly once part of the old mine. Again there is algae and slime all around and the damply humid air feels cold and clammy. Half way across the room, M’irs light reveals an archway into a corridor carved with a dragon sigil.
Just ten foot further is a crossroads with a small pile of heads, rocking slightly...
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Agreed - Praise for Piratecat for creating an adventure that is fun to run, creepy for the PCs and (particularly importantly) easy to use. Credit goes to Fiery Dragon too for the layout.
We play again this Sunday, so I'll try to get the adventure completely up-to-date before then.
- thanks for the encouragement!
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Getting within twenty feet or so, they can see that there are two gnoll heads with a human head atop it. Darra summons a mage hand, and uses it to roll the human head towards them - scattering those shiny beetles which had been crawling all over the heads and making it look as if they were moving.
As the head passes by M’ir, suddenly its rotten eyes snap open and it starts screaming and screaming and screaming. Trajan calmly steps forwards and slices it in two, although the sound of the screams echoes through the caverns.
“Ah well, someone knows we’re here now”.
The passageway to the left leads to a disgusting room, filled with an awful stench and with a huge pile of flesh in the middle of the floor - crudely stripped from bones. The room is also full of the little beetles, and the sound of their munching on the dead flesh is quite disgusting. They decide not to search this room further.
The passageway to the right leads to a large cavern, even more moist and with many patches of greenish slime. Investigating further into the room M’ir notices a piece of rock with words carved on recently, by a dagger.
It is next to a particularly luscious patch of slime.
It is a memorial to one of the “heroes of the bell” - who apparently was eaten alive by that same patch of slime. Backing away, they check out an adjoining room to the cavern - spotting a rotting old desk and some kind of broken copper mechanical man on the floor. They ignore this room and return to the crossroads, just in time to be faced by two zombie troglodytes who had positioned themselves near the corner, and who lurch into the attack!.
Azrin unhurriedly raises his holy symbol and cries “Turn, in the name of Asura!” but the zombies ignore him. Trajan cries out “Begone, foul beasts in the name of Asura!”. They carry on swinging. It is left to M’ir and Trajan to fight the zombies by hand, interspersed each round with further cries of “Turn, damn you!” from Azrin. The first two zombies fall, hacked apart, and two more approach but find their attack halted by a skilfully cast “grease” spell from Darra.
While Azrin continues with mounting disbelief to attempt to turn this second set of zombies, they are dispatched by Trajan and a combination of Darra’s magic missiles and Syl’s ray of frost. K’tan holds his power in reserve at the moment.
Finally, the zombies lie defeated. As they approach a copper bound door at the end of the corridor they hear an aged voice hiss out from beyond it.
“Ssssso, do you thinkssss you can come backssss and finishessss the job, eh? To kills the ressst of usss off, eh? Come and killsss me too, if you can. Sssssss”…
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Hey! You can't do this to me... I just gotten accustomed to the party, placed the miniatures in a line and visualized... And now you tell me two party members bite the dust? Cruel. Awesome. I love it.
Let's see... M'ir or Trajan ... one of those I guess... And Syl.
One of the deaths came about because of a fundamentally heroic act by one character who could stand still and see one of his comerades cut down, so he got in out of his depth. Someone else got buried alive.
There was an incident with a backfiring scroll which helped out in a backhanded way though...
Ok, enough with the teasing. I'll start writing up the adventure when I get home from work tonight.
Oh, and PC - should you and your gang find themselves in the London region one Sunday evening, I'm *sure* we could hide your involvement in OSM if you wanted to come and game
Cheers
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
I just realized I haven't stopped by here yet. Seems like a most entertaining adventure thus far (of course, coming from PKitty, how could it be otherwise).
I loved the horses bashing the PCs, that must have been a fun scene! With regards to climbing the mountain...just make something "impossible" and the PCs will try and do it!
Originally posted by Plane Sailing Oh, and PC - should you and your gang find themselves in the London region one Sunday evening, I'm *sure* we could hide your involvement in OSM if you wanted to come and game
Cheers
We're in the UK every year or so, to visit friends. Now we have more friends to add to the list. We'd love to sit in on a session. I can play dumb. It's surprisingly easy!
Originally posted by Old One With regards to climbing the mountain...just make something "impossible" and the PCs will try and do it.
Actually, I made sure not to make it impossible; I hate modules that do that, and you KNOW that some clever PC will find a way around it. I just tried to foresee a good strategy that would make it really, really challenging. It's easier to come in the back way... but they don't have to!
Actually, I made sure not to make it impossible; I hate modules that do that, and you KNOW that some clever PC will find a way around it. I just tried to foresee a good strategy that would make it really, really challenging. It's easier to come in the back way... but they don't have to!
I second this approach - too many times in the past I've seen modules (or had them "inflicted" on me) where something just can't be done - as a player you spend ages coming up with complex schemes and the DM eventually says "sorry guys, you just can't go this way".
Although it takes more effort, I think it is far better to think through the possible routes that could be taken and consider the consequences of such. Apart from anything else, it helps make for far less linear storylines, which is a good thing in my book. One destination, many routes!
Cheers
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
I never built my encounters in an impossible way... I just lined up the monsters and considered what they would be doing... thus making it impossible for the PCs to enter or get through...
As they debate what to do, Azrin hears the sound of feet shuffling off from behind the copper door. They also hear footsteps behind them, and are pleased to see Lysander joining them once more. Freed from his additional duties with Alkanar, he arrived at Bellhold earlier today and found out from the Mayor the route they had taken. It hadn’t taken long to work his way into the mine and down to meet them. They bring him up to date with developments in the Bellhold and the mine, then they proceed onwards to the door. Stiff but unlocked, they push open the large copper door and find another large room, with three mining corridors leading out, and no clear indication about the route which the hissy voice took. Once again, small beetles scuttle away from their torchlight.
One of the corridors leads to a partially collapsed room, with a large pile of rubble at the end. While they watch, every so often a pebble or small rock suddenly rolls down from its position on the mound of rock. No matter how carefully they look they can’t find evidence of anything else in the room, but they are a little worried by what is going on. Azrin asks K’tan to “knock some of the rubble away”, and K’tan responds with a concussion – which brings the house down! M’ir and K’tan dance back out the doorway as the remainder of the room collapses in.
They spend some twenty minutes marching along different mine tunnels, and M’ir is getting more and more irritated with the “waste of time” when they suddenly see a tunnel which opens into a chamber, filled with flickering light.
Creeping up to the entrance, the room is surrounded by carvings and bas relief artworks, but it is dominated by a huge stone dragon, rearing up so high that its head brushes the 30 foot high ceiling. It is looking down towards a vast copper bowl on an altar, fully 10 feet in diameter and 8 feet high, with pale dancing flames filling it. Over to the left is a huge pile of random humanoid bones. Stepping into the room, they can see just past the copper altar bowl is a wizened and crooked old troglodyte. He hisses and snarls at them, then waves his hand in their direction.
Suddenly three of the tiny beetles which infest the mine grow until they are the size of horses, two scuttle to attack Trajan, another scuttles towards Azrin. Lysander jumps to Azrin’s aid, while M’ir and K’tan stand ready to support Trajan. Darra and Syl duck back into the entrance. As combat is joined, they are all surprised to hear a sudden tumble of noise from the far corner of the room – and then look in horror as the pile of bones rises up into a single mass, twenty feet tall!
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
While the heroes fight the beetles, the huge Bonetangle steps towards the combatants and grabs both M’ir and K’tan, grabbing them and constricting them within its conglomeration of bones. Trajan slays one of the beetles and turns his attention to the other.
Lysander darts towards the ancient troglodyte who casts fear at him, but the Jazumai is immune to the dark threats which whisper at his psyche, and plunges headlong into combat with the elderly priest.
K’tan keeps his concentration and starts using concussion to blow bones of the undead creature holding him. M’ir keeps his concentration and starts raising the body temperature of the troglodyte. Syl gets her shortbow out and starts shooting at the beetle which is attacking Azrin, while Azrin attempts once more to call upon Asura’s power to turn undead – and once more fails to get anywhere.
The troglodyte slaps Lysander with a cause critical wounds and tries to back off while Lysander lays into it with his scimitar. Azrin runs to join in that combat as the beetle turns to attack the annoyance that has been stinging it in the rear, galloping over to attack Syl.
The Bonetangle has grabbed Trajan as well, and is now constricting all three – fortunately it doesn’t seem to have too good a grip on M’ir, as it always gets low damage on him. K’tan continues to manifest concussion, doing it some serious damage before he starts running low on power – at which point he draws the attributes of the tortoise to himself (gaining some much needed hit points from the Con boost). Darra joins in the combat, casting defensively he slides a layer of grease under the bonetangle. Trajan manages to wriggle free and is joined by Lysander, who has slain the old and feeble troglodyte priest. Chopping away together, and supported by magic missile fire from Darra, the Bonetangle starts to collapse, skid on the grease, and finally shatters into a conglomeration of bare bones.
Phew.
(we had a couple of scale 20ft tall minis that I put on the table for the stone dragon and the bonetangle, and it made the situation look pretty desperate! It gave the players a much better idea of the scale of the threat they faced!)
They check out the body of the ancient troglodyte, and find nothing on him but some kind of dragon tooth holy symbol. A long theological discussion ensues between M’ir and Azrin – M’ir wants to know where it got its clerical powers from if there is only one god, Asura. Azrin explains that it must have worshipped some hitherto unsuspected draconic aspect of Asura, the many-facetted one. The conversation gets quite heated, and only really dies down when Syl decides to climb up the stone dragon to take a closer look at the lovely sparkly and glowing sapphire eyes which it has…
__________________ Plane Sailing
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"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
What made me laugh was that the rest of the party retreated to the corners of the room and watched him. It was as if some kind of dread fascination had come over them...
I think Trajan said "I don't think you want to do that", but that was as far as the dissuasion went!
__________________ Plane Sailing
(Enworld Admin)
If you need to email me click here
"It makes as much sense as having Batman kill his parents and then go on to fight mutants from another dimension." - Rykion
Actually, I made sure not to make it impossible; I hate modules that do that, and you KNOW that some clever PC will find a way around it. I just tried to foresee a good strategy that would make it really, really challenging. It's easier to come in the back way... but they don't have to!
Pkitty -
I didn't mean to imply that you put a "no-win" situation into OSM, it was just commenting on P_S's continual comments on how difficult and icy the climb was. Many times - for some perverse reason, a party of PCs that are given several options for accomplishing a task will gravitate towards the most difficult!
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