Adventures in Kalamar! - (Now) Forging Darkness

[wsclark]

Hey, good to see someone else running the coin trilogy! I'm into a second session with it myself!

Thanks! You should have lots of fun with it. Where's your story hour? If you don't have one, you should definitely start one. It certaintly helps you to remember things that went on. If you don't have the time, rotate having one of your players write up each session instead. We need more Kalamar adventures here as mine and Sayburrs get lonely.

I don't have the time right now to get all caught up, but I have one question thus far. The Paladin and Cleric thought it was okay to keep all the gold and jewels in the Baolo's Mausoleum? My crew saw that as graverobbing! They put all the bones back where they were, and put the valuables back as best they could and resealed the place.

Well, different campaigns, different ethics I suppose.

This is an interesting question. The two characters you are asking about are played by brand new players. The Paladin, Shaedra, is played by my wife and the Cleric, Lulla, is played by Daloren's girlfriend. Both of them firmly reside in the story camp as opposed to the hack-n-slash camp.

Lulla is a cleric of The Coddler whose clergy is mostly concerned with sleep and dreams. She is Chaotic Good and believed that the skeletons were evil. She saw no reason not to destroy them and take the contents for the group's troubles. She was doing a good deed. The player did well for her first couple of times playing and really is starting to develop the character more and more as time goes on. She really is enjoying the game, especially since she and her boyfriend have made every session we have had so far (they are the only ones to do so.) She is starting to bring some aspects of being a cleric of Boegoo into play, like constantly suggesting that the group rest so she can get a proper 8 hours of sleep each night. It grates on the group a little bit, which is how it should since this demand gets in the way of some activities. It's all kept in game and is providing a lot of depth and fun.

Shaedra, on the other hand, while feeling the same way about destroying the evil, didn't really care that the group took the valuables. She has an understanding that not all in the group will be following the exact same tenets as her and therefore can see that the group needed the reward for their part in the event. She has very little needs and is not concerned at all about money, except to provide her with the necessities for living and survival. She is there to perform good deeds against evil (such as the skeletons and the ghouls of the Dairoo family.) Her philosphy does not seem to fit the straight laced Paladin and some of the players can't seemed to see this yet, but she is definitely playing the part. For an example of this, see one of the session logs where she suggests and leads a bar-hopping night in Zoa so that she can gather some information.

Hope this helps some.

 

[wsclark]

Session I – Ah, Let's Go Shopping; WHAT Do We Have To GET?!?!?!

Snowfall 10th, 744 YND

Ah, the morning after the feast, what a night it was. Those natives certaintly know how to have a good time in the middle of nowhere. Our heroes are all awake and despite Halaan's insistence that they head back to Zoa as quickly as possible, the group wants to continue to explore the remaining portions of the castle. Pug even wants to go back to free the imp as he feels obligated because the imp led them to sooo much treasure.

The Belsona warn the group that it is more than likely that the Hachita will be at the castle as that tribe has vastly more numbers than the Belsona. They also offer to provide an escort for the group to the bay shore line to meet up with their ship. The group agrees to the escort, but will swing by the castle on the way, just in case no one is there. Unfortunately, about 75 Hachita are at the castle, doing unimaginable things to their fallen comrades. Given the advantage the group had last time, which they don't have this time, they decide to go to the shore to catch their ship. There will be time in the future to come back here and claim the castle for their own, but who would want a castle in the middle of a jungle in the sweltering heat.

They board the Gryphon and set sail for Zoa.

Snowfall 15th, 744 YND

As the sun is setting, the Gryphon approaches the city of Zoa. The entire trip was uneventful, even for Marty the pony. Zoa looks the same as they left it almost 2 weeks before. As they depart the ship, they thank captain Haarckel for his service and Halaan starts to become quite frantic to get to Geolain's tower as soon as possible. The group leads him to the tower and after a brief conversation with Geolain, informs the group that he will need their services again and will contact them in a day or two. The group heads to the Crossed Cutlasses Inn, gets some rooms, some very nice hot baths, good food and lots of rest, not waking until well into the next day.

Snowfall 16th, 744 YND

After getting up in the early afternoon, our heroes convene to determine what to do with the treasure they have found. First order of business is to identify any magical items they now have. Geolain helped the night before with the potions:

• 1 Potion of Cure Serious Wounds
• 1 Potion of Fly
• 1 Potion of Gaseous Form
• 1 Potion of Invisibility
• 1 Potion of Heroism

Daloren then proceeds to identify them remaining items.

• 1 Small Shield of Fire Resistance
• 1 Ring of Minor Elemental Resistance (Fire)
• 1 Scroll of Divination

They decide to split the items up as follows:

• Daloren - Potion of Invisibility
• Lulla - Scroll of Divination, Small Shield of Fire Resistance
• Pug - Mighty Composite Longbow (+4)
• Rufio - Potion of Fly, Potion of Heroism
• Shaedra - Ring of Minor Elemental Resistance (Fire)
• Thalen - Potion of Gaseous Form, Potion of Cure Serious Wounds

They get a good meal for the evening to celebrate their success again and call it a day.

Snowfall 17th, 744 YND

All nicely refreshed, it is now time to sell the nice little trinkets they found in the castle. They spend the day going from place to place, trying to get the best price. By the end of the day, they have done quite well for themselves and now have between the six of them 21,000 GP!!!! There will be a lot of shopping to do in the coming days. That evening, they are contacted by Halaan and they meet with him and Geolain at Geolain's tower. Geolain has helped Halaan acquire a small forge in the Small Town District of Zoa and will help him in the research necessary on the Coin. Halaan will also start equipping his alchemist's lab in his new home and invites the group to stay at his home if they wish though he expects them to leave him alone while he works. Of course, they will need to double up in the bedrooms and the attic (which is oppressively hot but not dirty.)

The group agrees (free board) and go with Halaan to the new home which stands on a small piece of land on the north side of the Artisan's District. The vines are thick on the outer wall and weeds grow above knee-height around the foundation. All ceilings in the structure, except the attic, are eight feet high. Several shuttered windows festoon the small home The shutters open outward, each hinged on the side that faces out. Windows have seal skin curtains that can be pulled fully shut. They help Halaan move in and make themselves at home.

Snowfall 18th, 744 YND

For the next several days, the group goes on a shopping spree.

Snowfall 25th, 744 YND

After a week, Halaan asks to speak with the group him in the morning. After he hands each of them a goblet of watery wine, he takes a seat across the room and drains his own cup. He them looks bleary-eyed at them.

"I have acquired most of the ingredients I need for crafting a coin," he says, "save three: a diamond touched by death, one pint of devil's blood spilled by a coward, and blue dragon's breath. In my research on the coin," he continues, "I also learned of a likely location for the first ingredient - a diamond touched by death."

"Some fifty years ago, a manor house owned by the Hiereed family stood in the woods west of Zoa. It burned to the ground during a lightning storm, though I have read a conflicting account that the locals burned it.

The last of the Hiereed family to receive a proper burial, Adool, was buried with a large diamond - the size of a pigeon's egg if the legends are true - in the crypts below the manor. Through the house is long gone, I'm sure the crypts remain. I cannot continue my work until you bring me the diamond."

The group tells him that they will leave now to procure the diamond.

Traveling west along the road out of Zoa is relatively pleasant. Everyone is walking, except for Lulla who is riding Marty. Tall fields of grain, corn and other crops stretch out as far as the eye can see for some ten miles from the city. Small peasant huts with thatch roofs dot the plain and farmers can be seen working in the fields.

Ten miles from the city, the road runs just south of a dark forest. Twisted trees with thick, dark green leaves fill the woods. The woods are deathly still - not even the sound of insects pierces the silence.

Two miles further on, two tall pillars mark the entrance to the Hiereed Estate. Two pillars stand by the north side of the road. Both are cracked, crumbling with age and the top of the western one is completely sheered off. The statue that once stood on the other pillar is mostly broken and gone. All that remains are the lower part of some many-legged creature the likes of which you've yet to see. An overgrown trail leads further into the dark forest.

As they enter the woods, the silence overwhelms them. Everything seems muffled and distant as if cotton had been stuffed into their ears. Things look slightly out of focus and unclear. Even nearby trees look as if they stand behind a pane of thick wavy glass.

A mile from the road, the path opens up into a large clearing with several small, dark trees at the edges. A few crumbling, ruined stones stand on a solid rock foundation in the center of the clearing. The walls are sundered and many of them have completely fallen; a dark, unhealthy-looking moss clings to most of them. Black vines grip the fallen walls wherever the moss is thin.

They start searching the area, in general at first, then more closely. Thalen gets the feeling they are being watched by something malevolent but nothing out of the ordinary is seen. Occasionally, a large, dark squirrel dodges into the underbrush and disappears. Once, a large black snake slides under a stone. Searching for it reveals no sight of the crypt. Rufio disturbs a dark bird that looks like a crow except for the deformed break. It flies up and disappears into the forest, followed by the rest of the birds. After about an hour of searching, they find a stone trap door.

Using the crowbar that Pug carries, the group pries open the stone trap door. Foul air with a charnel stench issues forth as soon as they move the slab. Stone steps lead down into the darkness. Rufio takes out a sunrod, sets it glowing and throws it down the stairs. It clatters down the circular stairs resting about 20 feet below. After seeing that there is nothing down the stairs, Rufio urges the group to follow him down. As he starts for the stairs, the stench overcomes him. Rufio becomes violently ill, vomiting all over. The groups decides to wait for 15 minutes to let the stairway air itself out. Rufio is still not feeling all that well.

The steps are wet and slimy and a musty smell fills the staircase. A scratching can occasionally be heard from behind the stone walls. They start on their way down with Pug in the lead. As Pug reaches the sunrod, he can see that the stairs head down quite a bit more. He picks up the sunrod and promptly slips on the slime, falling down. A dozen dire rats rush out and attack the group.

There are two dire rats attacking each member of the group. They are surprisingly effective in their attacks, especially on Rufio and Pug. Pug takes a couple of bites while Rufio takes quite a few more, Lulla takes one as well. It isn't long before the group is finally able to dispatch them all. Rufio is actually hurt in a bad way. Lulla heals him up as best as she can with exhausting her spells and they decide to have themselves checked out when they get back to town, for it is sure that these rats carry some type of disease.

The steps descend 60 feet, ending in front of iron doors. The doors open away from the steps and a large lock on a chain seals them. A pentagram is inscribed on each door. After inspecting the door and finding the lock completely rusted, Pug gives the chain a whack or two to part it.

Beyond the doors lies a tomb some twenty feet wide and forty feet long. Shelves line the walls and even protrude into the room. Coffins and sarcophagi line every wall. On each, they can make out a small, greenish plaque on which is written the name of the occupant and the year he died in Reanaarian script. The dates all lie between 459 IR and 487 IR and about 20% of them are babies. A prodigious number of Hiereeds died in the 26 years they lived near Zoa.

They beginning searching the crypt, examining the coffins and sarcophagi for any information as to the whereabouts of Adool Hiereed. After failing to find a plaque with Adool's name on it, Daloren notices a faint trail through the dust on the floor (as if something had been dragged) leading from an open coffin in the back corner towards a large stone sarcophagus that lies on one of the nearby stone ledges. The sarcophagus has neither name nor ornamentation. The lid is extremely heavy.

Suspecting danger, Lulla and Rufio stand back towards the entrance while Thalen provides cover fire for Daloren, Pug and Shaedra as they combine their might to move the sarcophagi lid. As soon as a large enough opening is created for a hand to squeeze into the sarcophagus, a mottled green tentacle shoots out and attacks Pug, wounding him. A second tentacle emerges a moment later and effortlessly pushes the lid back to reveal the thing that was once Adool Hiereed. The thing that slithers from the coffin may have once been human but is now something altogether hideous. The mottled gray skin looks rotted in places and small tentacles thrust out from all over a body dressed in once-fine clothing, now torn and rotten. The tentacles grow most profusely where the mouth of the thing should be and from its armpits. Where it should have arms grow larger tentacles. It gibbers and babbles insanely and something glitters from beneath its left armpit.

Pug, Shaedra and Daloren all grab their weapons and attack the thing. It is proving difficult to hit, but Shaedra get a well placed blow the causes much damage. Before Daloren gets a chance to try and hit the thing, it hits him twice, once with each of its big tentacles and then succeeds in grappling Daloren. Thalen moves up swinging with his greatsword, hitting it. Meanwhile, Lulla and Rufio, who is quaffing his potion of heroism, prepare to join the fray when an opening presents itself. The thing then takes Daloren and throws him across the room against a wall where he falls down in a heap of hurt. Daloren is in great pain.

Shaedra swings at the creature again, landing another solid blow. The creature hits Pug again, but fails to get both tentacles around him to grab him. Thalen whacks the thing, hitting it well. Pug then swings his battle axe in a might arc and sunders the creature in half, killing it. Lulla goes over to heal Daloren while Rufio looks on in amazement, saying "I thought we were all going to buy it that time."

They grab the diamond from the creature and prepare for the trip back to Zoa.

 

[Broccli_Head]

What kind of a creature has tentacles coming out of its armpits!?

 

[wsclark]

What kind of a creature has tentacles coming out of its armpits!?

Officially? The Thing in the Crypt!

Here are the missing sentences to the description I provided in my log that are in the module: "While all other members of the family perished in the fire of 670 YND, Adool was the last to be given a proper burial. Of course, he was not dead but somehow had been transformed into a hideous monster."

You see, there is also some background on the Hiereed's as well:

Madness of the Hiereeds

The Hiereeds came to Zoa in 640 YND (459 IR) from the north but refused to divulge from exactly whence. They were quite rich and built a huge manor of wood and stone twelve miles west of the city, nestling it deep in the forest away from the main road.

Their patriarch was a wizard who practiced the blackest sort of magic, conducting strange rites and worshipping unknown gods in the manorhouse. Tales of nightmarish things sighted near the house and in the dark, twisted woods in which it lay began to fill the Zoan people with dread. Patrols from Zoa were sent several times into the woods to investigate the rumors and even went so far as to search the Hiereed manor, but nothing untoward was found.

In 664 YND (483 IR) a captain returned from his patrol in possession of a ragged burlap bag. The suspicious bag was taken to one of the Council of Twelve; and the old man reportedly went mad when he gazed within. The bag was immediately weighed down and dropped into the sea east of the city.

-----

The above is background information for the DM in a side bar of the module. Here is some information the PCs could have found out if they decided to gather some intelligence (pun intended) before setting out:

The strange activity in the Hiereed Woods (as the forest came to be known) continued until 670 YND (487 IR), at which time the Hiereeds held some kind of fabulous masque at the house. Though none of the nobles of Zoa attended, many ships from far away lands, some of them quite strange looking, docked in the bay. Highly decorated, elegant closed coaches went through the city on the way to Hiereed Woods all day. Disturbing looking and thoroughly unruly sailors frequented the taverns about the town. Very late on the evening of the masque, as the tales go, the manor was struck by lightning. Many Zoans whisper that it was not lightning that burned down the place but angry local people who had had enough of the madness and evil near their city. The place burned to the ground with all of the revelers within. Only the foundation survived.

-----

This information alone has lots of potential for further adventures. As for the thing in the crypt, I thought the PCs would have a tougher time with it. Here is the stat block:

The Thing in the Crypt: CR 8; Size M, (6 ft. tall), HD 8d8+16; hp 62; Init +4 (Dex); Spd 30 ft.; AC 17 (+4 Dex, +3 natural); Atk +5 melee (1d6+5/1d6+5, 2 tentacles); SA improved grab, withering touch; AL CE; SV Fort +2, Ref +4, Will +0; Str 20, Dex 18, Con 15, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 10.

Skills and Feats: Hide +6, Jump +6, Listen +4, Move Silently +6, Use Magic Device +6, Blind-Fight.

SA - Improved Grab (Ex.): If the thing grasps anyone with both tentacles, it grapples as a free attack without provoking an attack of opportunity. Once it has its victim, it throws them across the room at the end of the round, dealing an additional 1d6+5 points of damage unless they make a Reflex saving throw (DC 20) for half damage.

SA - Withering Touch (Su.): Once every 5 rounds, the touch of the things tentacles acts as a rod of withering (1d4 points of temporary Strength damage and 1d4 points of temporary Constitution damage). If it scores a critical hit, the damage is actually a permanently drained ability score. In either case, the victim negates the effect with a Fortitude check (DC 14).

Development. The things fears fire intensely and retreats from open flames. Otherwise, it fights to the death. It can leave the tomb though it does not like sunlight. If left alive, it follows the PCs trail after dark, tracking them incessantly wherever they go. It has gone quite mad in the long years since it was laid to rest.

------

Both Pug and Daloren made their saving throws verse the Withering Touch. Daloren, on the other hand, did get the brunt of the Improved Grab. But it was the three critical hits, two by Shaedra and one by Pug that did the thing in. I was hoping to have the thing follow them around for a while

 

[Broccli_Head]

So it wasn't undead? That's pretty interesting.

 

[Darklone]

Thing in the crypt

Yeah it's lovely. Nothing generic.

As for the graverobbery in the Baolo mausoleum... Since those guys had been worshipping an evil deity ... I didn't mind robbing them. But in my games properly buried corpses cannot be animated. So if you find undeads in otherwise usual graves, they gotta have connections to some big baddies.

Hmm. Bill, are you sure about that +5 to hit with the tentacles? It's got that for his STR only and it's a 8HD monster.... And I think it hit lots better.

 

[wsclark]

To be honest, I didn't double check the stats for the creature. In the long run it didn't matter because it got to attack in only two rounds and hit all the time, before it was wholesale slaughtered by Shaedra and Pug. At the time Pug gave it its death kneel, it had less than 20 hit points left. Pug got a critical with his greataxe, and was using power attack, transferring all of his +5 BAB to damage. His roll was suppose to be a 1d12+11 (+4 * 1.5 from Strength, +5 from power attack). Of course, this was times 3! The minimum damage roll would have been a 36. It was doomed from the beginning. The dire rats on the stairs leading to the crypt did more damage to the group than this thing did!

 

[Darklone]

Hmmm

My group walked down the stairs without anyone falling. Lotsa luck. But then the rats fled up the stairs. That made my players wonder... (they hate dire rats). Since the halforc barbarian tried to shoot a bird upstairs and would have sworn he hit and the arrow went right through ... Well I tried to spook them a bit. Then the door didn't open far enough. Gnome went in.

Players were split and tentacleman had a nice time.

 

[Baron Von Mandrick]

I need more

Whta happened? They found the diamond. Please tell me where to read more.

 

[wsclark]

Re: I need more

Whta happened? They found the diamond. Please tell me where to read more.

Um, you will find it here, soon. Real life (meaning putting three rooms in my basement, my father passing away unexpectedly and a major project at work that I finished up a week ago) stopped me from writing up the continuing adventures. I have about a dozen sessions to catch up on. Now that I'm on vacation, I should have a chance to start posting the sessions. Just as a short update, they have finished the second coin and are now on their way to confront Daresh (but they have several obstacles in their path). Stay tuned.