TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Another decent enough week of dungeoncrawling with 5/7 present. The two kobolds headed in opposite directions to explore the second level of the temple, with the winged one heading east and the sniper heading west. East was lots of empty rooms, but west was the eyes of the deep, using their illusion powers to simulate a whole phalanx of Kuo-toa warriors blocking their way. The sniper stayed stealthy and warned the others, who sent the orc charging at them. (as the only one with a swim speed, letting him actually get around at a decent pace) After a single round of smashing illusions he made his will save and figured out they were all dying in a suspiciously identical way. He alerted the others, but they were busy trying to catch up with their much slower movement rates. The sniper was still blinking around the periphery of the fight and soon spotted the eye of the deep hiding behind a corner controlling the illusion. He wounded it with one zap, and the orc finished it off with another charge. Once the rest of the PC's had caught up, they once again wound up splitting up again. Most of them headed south, since that was the direction the compass was indicating, but the winged kobold headed north just to make sure there was no trouble coming from that direction. This turned out to be not such a great move for him as there was indeed another eye of the deep heading in from that direction. Not willing to fight it on his own, this turned into several tense rounds pitting his stealth skills against its spot and listen, making the hides but failing enough move silently rolls that it kept moving suspiciously towards him. Eventually, he managed to roll a natural 20 and wedge himself in a crack in the ceiling, at which point he stayed still until it passed underneath him and he could attack it from behind as it started blasting the rest of the group. Once again it was up to the orc to deliver the bulk of the damage and then keep it down until the priestess could deal the coup de grace with her acidic whip.

Once combat had ended again, most of the group stayed in the big central corridor while the binder and sniper once again headed in different directions to fill in the map. The binder realised she could make better progress by detaching her shadow and sending it out to explore, since that isn't subject to environmental penalties. She headed to the west while the sniper checked the east. West was lots of empty rooms, but east was the secret door leading to the tunnel down, which was guarded by the morkoth and it's vodyanoi minions. Fortunately, he both spotted it easily and resisted the hypnotic patterns, pulling back to draw the first vodyanoi out where the whole group could finish it off. Once the binder returned from checking the other side, they sent her in to explore the hypnotic tunnels, since her blindfold meant she was in no danger of being charmed and eaten. She soon beat up the remaining two, eliminating the hypnotic effect and they finished the monsters off with the acid whip again, looted the treasure and headed down to level three, which seemed like the right point to call it a night. Still two more levels to go, but whether they'll find the way down to the final floor quickly and reach the big boss next session or spend ages wandering around the mostly empty third one remains to be seen.

 

[(un)reason]

Everyone was present this time. They started their exploration of level 3 in similar fashion to the previous two. The winged kobold explored the mausoleums of area 16 (now thoroughly ransacked by the hungry fungus people) while the binder sent her shadow forward into area 17. It was quickly zapped by the collective lightning bolt powers of the kuo-toa whips on the other side, but that was no great loss and at least the PC's knew where the enemy was now. Time for the orc to take point and charge into the fray before they recharged their zapping powers. A few martial maneuvers later they were downed and easy prey for the priestesses acidic whip. The next wave of defences after the ramp met a similar fate. They then reached the big 4 way junction, which once again made things more interesting as they decided to split the party. The kobolds and barbarian went down the south passage, while the priestess and binder wandered east. This as usual turned out to be a bad idea, as the girls wandered straight into the giant octopus lair in area 20. (cue inevitable hentai references) The binder had a high enough AC that only natural 20's could hit her, so even 8 attacks per round wasn't doing much, but the priestess did actually get grappled and took a decent amount of damage before they managed to shred them into calimari. Meanwhile the guys opened up the door to room 18, where more kuo-toa were guarding the shaft down to level 4. The orc did most of the heavy hitting as usual, then they backed off once the monsters were downed and the sniper finished them off with an electric blast. They then had to spend several rounds finding the girls and telling them that the main plot was this-a-way, once again slowed down by the underwater movement penalties before they could get to the final level.

Level 4 continued in a similar fashion, two more waves of kuo-toa defences that at this point it was obvious were merely stalling for time, even the choke point of area 23 failing to do more than get a couple of lightning bolts off before they were destroyed by charging orc and the others piggybacking on him to make up for their slower movement rates. I had hopes that the kraken that was the original boss of this adventure would last a little longer, as it does at least have 310 hp in 3e. But no, the orc had the right martial maneuver ready to unleash a full attacks worth of triple damage strikes that downed it in a single round. But no amount of twinkery can deny the whims of the DM, so it was still able to gasp out a dramatic "you're too late", and they could see the portal open behind it with tentacles even longer than a kraken's emerging from the rip in space. Perfect time for a cliffhanger ending. Lets see if the Scarlet Lord survives any longer with not only 408 hp, but also 20/+4 damage reduction and actually gets to use the other tricks up its many sleeves.

 

[(un)reason]

All but one were present again. The orc grabbed the binder and they charged into the melee as Xhagevoxhab pulled itself out of the gate. Both attacked, but the orc was only doing mild damage after the DR was taken into account and the binder wasn't penetrating at all. Meanwhile the priestess started reading out the ritual to reseal the gates. The drow & githyanki pulled out a bunch of summons, surrounding it with huge sharks and water elementals. This at least meant they were soaking up most of the tentacle attacks, but the scarlet lord still managed to one-shot the drow in the third round. Meanwhile the sniper once again snuck invisibly round the edges of the room, teleported away with part of the chains to spoil the binding ritual (for reasons related to his character's true allegiance) then teleported back again. He then told them that the ritual would be useless against it, but lied about the reason why. (rolling excellently on his bluff check so even though the other players knew something was up, their characters did not. Several more rounds passed in which the PC's hit it with everything they had, but most of their spells fizzled against its spell resistance, apart from one to reduce Xhagevoxhab's dexterity, which did at least make it even easier to plink away at. But the summoned minions were losing HP far faster than it and it was becoming obvious that once they were gone, the group would have a very bad time of things. So the orc scooted back through the tunnel to the rest of the group, carrying the binder and the body of the fallen drow along the way. Once everyone was within touch range, the githyanki activated his Plane Shift power, saving everyone except the cowering Plugoo who had run away from the group. (and will be converted next time they see him) Now they're in a random location on the astral plane, and need to heal up, get their bearings, get back to familiar terrain and figure out how to fight the scarlet lord from a more advantageous position. In the meantime, I can set another important plot thread in motion. Muahahaha.

 

[(un)reason]

Everyone was present. The group got a little chance to catch their breath, but before they could recharge their spells, they were swept up by an astral cyclone (cue wizard of oz tornado scene.) After a short but interminable period of being whirled around, they were dumped unceremoniously at the edge of an astral island. Time for them to experience another of the keystones of this adventure path, Interlopers of Ruun-Khazai, which will hopefully be the place where they find out IC just what the Lich-queen really does with those githyanki given a "glorious retirement". (some of the players have been getting antsy about that OOC, admittedly, and really want to be able to start preparing IC for their eventual betrayal as well) Anyway, they dithered around discussing their new situation for a while, which meant I had to kickstart them into action by having the ballistas on top of the western dome start firing at them. The orc and priestess took minor damage and everyone started doing their own thing in fairly unco-ordinated fashion. The binder flew straight for them, tanking several shots along the way. The winged kobold and orc also decided closing to melee range would be a good idea, although it took the kobold another couple of rounds to get close due to his slower fly speed, and the orc could only reach halfway up the dome with his jump, forcing him to climb the rest of the way. The Githyanki teleported himself, the drow and the priestess straight to the top of the dome. Between the six of them, they made short work of the four ballistas, although the freshly raised drow did get blasted along the way, losing more than half his hp in one go, reminding them that they really need to protect their squishy guys better.

Meanwhile the sniper had skittered off to the very edge of the island and hidden amongst the volcanic rocks. Once it looked like the others had the situation under control, he skittered back towards the dome and blinked through the walls, starting to explore the ground floor. The others opened up the hatch in the top of the dome and ventured into the top floors. They spent the rest of the session slowly exploring the dome, finding it richly furnished but also completely devoid of inhabitants. They did set off several of the alarmed statues, resulting in some definite paranoia, but after nothing attacked the first time they soon started tuning that out. The binder triggered the salamander summoning in room 22, but since the githyanki was also in the room they looked to him for direction and he could simply order them to stand down, to the glee of everyone involved. They questioned them, establishing that they had been summoned here before every few years, giving them another small clue to what is going on here before dismissing them. They explored all the floors, but no-one rolled well enough to find the secret door in the basement leading to the heart of the island, and decided to rest here for a night before exploring the other towers and pyramids. So they haven't short-circuited the adventure and I can have a little more fun playing around with the experience of being trapped on a small island out of contact with home with other adventuring parties showing up equally baffled and a powerful wizard messing around with everyone involved before getting back to the main plot.

 

[(un)reason]

5/7 present this time. Things started off slowly, with the group debating whether they should keep on exploring the island, or try teleporting back to Tu'narath. The drow got impatient and decided to play sacrificial lamb and cast the spell on himself. To no-one's great surprise, he reappeared floating above the other side of the island just before the psychic storms kick in. The others didn't immediately know this, but soon found out once the binder sent her bird out to scout the island again. However, they both saw and were seen by the newly arrived Githzerai digging at the pyramid. Once again aware that fighting them alone probably wouldn't go well, the drow turned invisible and flew back towards the tower, while the bird stuck around and got zapped by magic missile. They quickly debated what to do next, aware that the githzerai wizard was casting buff spells on the team of monks as they spoke. The binder and drow decided to fly straight back there (still invisibly) and unleash their full power on them. Not wanting to be left behind, the githyanki readied a teleport to bring the rest in at about the same time they would arrive and the others readied actions to go immediately after they appeared. The drow fired a fireball and then a lightning bolt, which damaged the githzerai wizard, but proved laughably ineffective against the evasion powers of the monks. Fortunately, the binder charged in and shredded him, swiftly followed by the orc cleaving through three of the monks and the priestess finishing off the final one.

They then investigated the pyramid, having to deal with the githzerai's pet hellcats along the way, which did actually manage to do decent damage to the orc before being taken down. After a brief break for regeneration, they set off into the tunnels, with the binder's shadow leading the way. It traced around the left wall of the tunnels, first finding the secret door that led up into the dome that they missed the first time around, then reaching the entrance to the heart of the island, where it promptly got zapped. This of course was not a deterrent to a group of PC's and they headed that way to find out what was going on. They found their way blocked by a strange door made of bone. As they examined it, an osyluth teleported out to attack them. That was easy enough for the group to deal with, but did make it obvious they couldn't hang around out here. So they didn't bother puzzling out any of the ways they could have opened the door without damaging it and let the binder shred her way through. On the other side were the stone golem and two more summoned devils, also swiftly dispatched. They then headed through the left door, down to room 3 where the binder tanked the energy drain trap without incident, around the crossroads, taking in the summoning room along the way and then up to room 8, which meant Karluth had time to cast his buff spells and put some more summons in their way. As soon as they opened that door, he blasted them with a horrid wilting, then followed up with an ice wall. The PC's responded by summoning some pain devils, which Le'eska the succubus decided were a fitting opponent for her. But once again time caught up with us, so the session drew to a close just before the dramatic final battle of the adventure. Will Karluth survive long enough to get off his dramatic speech about how he'd rather die here than have the lich-queen eat his soul, and will it stop them from killing him, or will they mow through these adversaries in less than a round and only find out what was going on here by reading his notes afterwards?

 

[(un)reason]

Half the group busy due to Father's Day stuff, so the session was cancelled in advance. It's looking like there'll be more absences in general over the summer holidays, (with some people getting much longer vacations than others ) so we can expect more weeks where we fail to make quorum over the next couple of months. Let's hope they're invested enough in the conclusion to the story that this won't kill the campaign by slow attrition.

 

[(un)reason]

Everyone was present save the player of the orc, who is another victim of real life scheduling issues and forced to retire from the game. (although his character will be sticking around at least until they beat the Scarlet Lord as they really need that heavy hitting power) The binder unleashed a full attack on the hellcat next to her, rapidly followed up by the priestess finishing it off. The orc pushed through the others and smashed the ice wall so the fight could proceed. Karluth responded by spamming more summons and putting a couple of fiendish wolves in the way, then casting eyebite on the orc, which did absolutely nothing with his high fort save. The binder, priestess & orc then headed through the break in the ice wall, tanking the cold damage along the way and started laying into the minions. Seeing the way the fight was headed, Karluth shouted that he'd rather die here than have the lich-queen consume his soul, unleashed one more quickened zap before stepping back and casting wall of force to block the way between rooms 8 & 2. Unfortunately, he hadn't blocked the entire wall between the rooms, so the sniper made an educated guess and dimension doored the binder through the wall roughly where they thought he would be. Meanwhile the other PC's who had been hanging back made the educated guess that the room they hadn't seen yet connected to room 1 and ran back around the corridors the long way, taking the summoned pain devils with them. Karluth took a full round's worth of attacks from the binder, which did not immediately reduce him to shreds because he had stoneskin up, but still made it clear that trying to hang around and fight her hand-to-hand would be a bad idea. He dimension doored away to room 1, only to see four of the the others running up from the south. Since they were in a neat formation with none of his allies in the way, he unleashed a prismatic spray, which banished one pain devil and sent the other insane, but both the PC's managed to avoid anything happening that would make regrouping even more complicated after the fight. The sniper teleported the priestess into room 2 as well, where she saw the binder now all alone, but hearing sounds of spellcasting from just beyond the other door, they knew which way to head and busted through the bone door to find the others all in room 1. The orc managed to resist the succubuses attempts at mind-control and finish her off, while everyone else tried to knock out but not kill Karluth, since our githyanki leader was obviously curious about his declarations and wanted to question him further. Fortunately, the dice were with them and they managed to get him to negative hp, strip him, stabilise him, and then bring him around with everyone surrounding him with held actions, ready to finish him off if he even thought about dimension dooring away.

And so they finally got the revelation many of the players had been waiting for for months, that all the propaganda about the lich-queen rewarding her most skilled servants with "glorious ascension" was a lie, and the best they could hope for was being transformed into her undead servants unable to ever improve their skills beyond what they learned in life, with most simply having their souls consumed to increase her power. Karluth found out the truth after someone he loved "ascended" and ran away here, doing a powerful ritual that spun up the psychic storm that shielded this place from scrying. (leaving out the part about all the sacrifices needed to do the ritual and that people regularly being sucked in so he could kill them to keep it running was an intended part of the design rather than a glitch, but they soon put two and two together perusing his library) Of course, he'd been out of the loop for the past century, so he had no idea about the current political situation in Tu'narath, but he could tell them that there used to be a secret organisation called the Sha'sal Khou that knew the truth and wanted to overthrow her rule and that Sergeant Zetch'r'r used to be a member. A very good knowledge roll let the gith PC confirm that he was not only still alive, but a general now. Getting in contact with him could still be a challenge with only a century old callsign (it's an older meme, but it checks out), but at least it was a place to start. In return, they told him the basics of what was going on now with Pharagos, and while Karluth didn't know much about the place, he did know it was the world on which the gith rebellion against the illithid empire got started, which was still new information for them and triggered quite a bit of speculation about what the queen might be looking for. When told about the escape of the scarlet lord, his main warning was not to let her get hold of the body afterwards if they did manage to defeat him. He also wanted a sample of the fungus for further study, but having seen what happened to the last sucker who thought they could master the mold, the group were unanimously against that. So they made their plans to leave and try to build up their own powerbase while pretending to still be loyal members of the githyanki army until they thought they were strong enough to take her on. (or screwed up and were caught) But before they could leave, Karluth told them that there was a third faction recently arrived on the island, a group of human & demihuman adventurers currently exploring one of the northern towers. While he could open up a gap in the storm to let them go, if they wanted him alive when they came back, they'd better deal with them.

As usual, the binder was the most enthusiastic about the prospect of more bloodshed and zipped out of the tunnels by the pyramid with the intention of flying over to the tower and attacking them from the top. The two kobolds and the priestess took the slightly more measured option of sneaking into the tower through the secret door in the basement, while the two spellcasters and the orc stayed back to keep an eye on Karluth and continue reading through his library for any more interesting arcane research. Will splitting the party turn out to be a bad idea, or will the combination of stealth and attacking from both sides deal with the adventurers before they get a chance to use their best powers? Once again, time ran out on us so we'll find out next session, whenever that is with all these vacations coming up.

 

[(un)reason]

4 players present this time. The sniper cast ghost sound with the intention of getting the attention of the adventurers* and luring them out to the stairwell where they could be attacked from above and below. However, the binder's impatience once again ruined best-laid plans and she whizzed down the stairwell and attacked them in the armory before they could come out. That meant the battle took place in the cramped confines of area 5 of the towers which prevented the PC's from getting any flanking in. She turned her attentions on the enemy dwarf fighter, who blocked the way to the other three enemies. Their gnome wizard cast stoneskin on him, and then the other three headed around the shelves in an attempt to surround her. Hearing the commotion, several of the other the other PC's headed up the stairs. The flying kobold and priestess managed to get there in time to keep the binder from being completely surrounded, which meant the next few rounds turned into a cramped battle of the enemy fighters against the binder and the drow's summoned earth elemental (only medium sized due to the cramped quarters, which meant it was too weak to contribute much to the fight) while the priestess and kobolds faced off against the enemy spellcaster & rogue. The priestess failed her save against Hold Person and spent most of the fight frozen, but the kobolds were lucky and sneaky enough to resist her attempts at charming, polymorphing and feebleminding and wear her down. Meanwhile the Binder's high AC meant the fighters were mostly missing her, but one critical hit with an axe did manage to take out nearly half her hp in one go. Eventually, the dwarf fighter & gnome mage were downed, which meant the action economy turned against the enemies and the remaining two fell much faster, the sniper delivering the final blow with a well-timed wings of flurry. They then tied up the three that were reduced to negative hp but not killed and gave them to Karluth to do as he pleased.

The rest of the session turned into a bookkeeping one, as they finally got to level up to 14 and go through all the treasure from the last 3 months of adventuring, (which is actually only 4 days of IC time, but that's D&D for ya) considering what they want to keep, what they want to sell, and what they want to buy in turn. Since that will involve going back to Tu'narath, it looks like that is indeed their next course of action and we shall see if they can get in and out without anyone realising they're no longer loyal to the lich-queen and continue following missions & growing in power until they're ready to face her on their own terms next time.

(*The rival party was comprised of Karthak the Indomitable and Aedar Windblade from the Bo9S, Caphodel Berrandar from Complete Mage, and Devida Vennsiol from Star Wars Gamer 6 for a group that's of similar level, but smaller and less well-equipped than the PC's, as NPC adventurers usually are.)