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<blockquote data-quote="Hairy Minotaur" data-source="post: 3300399" data-attributes="member: 11574"><p><strong>All hell's breaking loose</strong></p><p></p><p>Menthos creeps to the hallway the assassin dragged the dead body down, it ends with a closed stone door. Menthos can feel a cold breeze blowing from around the gaps in the door frame and concludes it must be a makeshift walk-in freezer. He tries the handle and finds it is not locked, opening the door slowly he feels the blast of icy air wash down the hallway. Racks of pigs and sides of beef hang silently; Menthos begins to step inside the freezer when he notices a small blood trail winding from the door back to the far right corner of the room. The faint phosphorescent light coming off the natural moss on the ceiling gives the tiefling’s vision an image of two men one slumped over against the wall, the other standing over the slumped man, frantically stripping him of his clothing, both men appear to be identical or nearly identical silhouettes. </p><p></p><p>A low shuffling sound, not unlike a foot being slowly dragged across stone, emanates from a space next to Menthos. Startled, Menthos looks up at the two figures, the slumped one has fallen over on his side while the upright one has turned to look directly at Menthos. Menthos pushes on the door to widen the gap; however it hit’s something solid that prevents him for opening it any farther. The upright silhouette begins walking toward Menthos.</p><p></p><p>“Sorry to have interrupted you, I know how exciting meat lockers can be on the libido.” Menthos says as he closes the door, and then hurriedly searches through his pockets for a thin piece of metal. </p><p></p><p>Producing a fork, Menthos bites off one of the prongs and quickly locks the door from the outside, taking the prong he jabs it into the keyhole. He then rams the pommel of his longsword into the keyhole for good measure, “that ought to do it.” Menthos says aloud.</p><p></p><p>“Hey! What are you doing down there?” It was the head chef again</p><p></p><p>“I’m trying to open this door, it’s stuck.” Menthos replies</p><p></p><p>“By beating on it with your sword?” The chef asks incredulously</p><p></p><p>“I’m a health inspector dammit, not a rogue. I can’t figure how it’s supposed to open.” Menthos answers</p><p></p><p>The head chef starts down the hallway as the door’s handle turns in Menthos’ palm, the teifling applies all the pressure he can muster but is unable to stop the handle from turning.</p><p></p><p>“Step aside, I have the key.” The head chef commands</p><p></p><p>Menthos hesitates, not wanting to let go of the handle.</p><p></p><p>“Move!” The chef yells and shoves Menthos out of the way</p><p></p><p>The door handle flies up, but Menthos’ jam job holds and the door fails to open to whoever is shoving on the other side. Bone-jarring thuds are heard against the door as the chef steps back confused</p><p></p><p>“Is somebody in there?” The chef shouts as he tries to get the key in the door, only to find it no longer fits, “this is the right key, I don’t understand.” </p><p></p><p>“Let me go get someone from security, they’re bound to have a crowbar or some manpower to pry this door off.” Menthos states</p><p></p><p>“What about the ogre?” The chef inquires</p><p></p><p>“Nah, he’s only good for one thing and if I tell him what’s behind this door, not only will he open it but you won’t have anything left to serve.” Menthos answers</p><p></p><p>“Hurry then, they’ll freeze in there.” The chef commands</p><p></p><p>Menthos runs to the stairs leading up to the party level and as soon as he’s gone up a couple of steps and is out of sight from the freezer door, he slows to a nonchalant walk and pushes the thought of finding someone to open the door out of his mind. Whistling an old orc battle tune, he mingles with the other guests as he emerges from the stairs.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile the rest of the party members catch a minstrel show put on by a thri-keen, while Haimish marvels at the creatures ability to play three instruments at once the rest of the party wanders the large gathered group looking for Lord De’ Lite.</p><p></p><p>Xanthos’ shifted ears pick up bits of conversation none of them however include Lord De’ Lite’s name, Xanthos works his way out of the room and spies Menthos heading towards him. Xanthos waves him down to get his attention, Menthos however walks by without noticing. Xanthos reaches out and grabs his arm to stop him as he passes in front of the shifter.</p><p></p><p>“Hey, hey, hey. I’m not one of the help; go find a servant to annoy!” Menthos tells the elf as he rips his arm from the elf’s grasp</p><p></p><p>“Menthos it’s me, Xanthos” </p><p></p><p>“How do you know my name?! Charlatan! Witch! Doppelganger” Menthos yells and points at the wealthy dressed elf</p><p></p><p>The guests in close proximity to Menthos and Xanthos turn to look at what the dirty dressed teifling was yelling about. Thoroughly annoyed, Xanthos tries to back away from Menthos and leave the immediate area, however now several people had been looking directly at him and he feared his cover was blown especially if Lord De’ Lite was in the room disguised.</p><p></p><p>Menthos walked on uncaring of the opinions floating around him, “Ha, ha, loser.” Menthos thought as he found Haimish, Turgar and Kessen taking in the minstrel show. </p><p></p><p>“I will never understand this modern music, who would listen to a bug play a harp?” Menthos asks aloud</p><p></p><p>‘Shh! The man is brilliant.” A guest turns and tells him</p><p></p><p>“Man? Looks like an enlarged starving cockroach, where’s a hill giant when you need a big shoe.” Menthos comments</p><p></p><p>The thri-keen finishes up and the people start to file out of the room, Menthos catches the rest of the party and informs them of Doopa’s whereabouts and of the assassin locked in the freezer.</p><p></p><p>“I think we should interrogate this assassin and see what she knows.” Kessen suggests, Haimish and Turgar agree. “And keep an eye out for Xanthos, we lost him a couple rooms back.”</p><p></p><p>“He’s busy doing damage control, someone shouted doppelganger so he went to investigate.” Menthos explains</p><p></p><p>As the group exits the room, Haimish catches a glimpse of a small green figure slashing into the calf of a party guest and then disappearing down the hallway away from the damage. The man reaches done for his calf and pulls his blood soaked hands away.</p><p></p><p>“I’ve been stabbed!” Was all the man ever got out as he began to convulse and crumpled to the floor</p><p></p><p>Haimish alerted the present group members about the goblin, “looks like a poisoned blade too.”</p><p></p><p>But, as the party began to force their way through the throng of startled guests, Kessen stops them, “What is this is a diversion? One goblin cuts a random man’s leg? Too fishy for me.”</p><p></p><p>The party considers his words and agrees, they turn around and begin flowing with the mass of people streaming away from the murder scene. Up ahead near the entrance, Xanthos was fuming over Menthos’ comments and trying to calm himself down before returning to his mission. He spots three large minotaurs coming down the entrance steps and exiting the entry room. The minotaurs are dressed as city guard but Xanthos spots a tattoo on the backs of each of their right hands. Recognizing the tattoo as the mark of Carnak god of slaughter, Xanthos decides to follow this new development instead as there seems to be quite a few people running away from the center of the party further down the hallway.</p><p></p><p>The minotaurs’ wide bodies force the party guests to squeeze against the walls as the minotaurs walk side by side through the hallways and finally to the steps leading down to the kitchen area. Xanthos prepares to follow them but is met with the rest of the party who inform him of the goblin’s attack, Xanthos relates the minotaur appearance and the party starts downstairs.</p><p></p><p>Screams and the sounds of breaking dishes erupt from the kitchen area the party hustles down the stairs to find the minotaurs cutting down the kitchen staff and have backed the remaining survivors into a hallway off the pit area that leads to the small cooking stoves and the food preparation areas, the party knew there was no escape from that area.</p><p></p><p>Doopa sat absentmindedly poking a dead waiter, “W-a-t-e-r, Doopa want water.” Doopa looks up as Menthos calls out his name, the ogre waves to the rest of the party, it is only then does he notice the carnage that just transpired around him. Wondering how he had noticed the minotaurs, he remembered he was eating a particularly good piece of lamb. It’s juices were dripping down his chin and the smokiness from the fire made his mouth water, he momentarily forgot about the minotaurs and began looking for more lamb, then remembered he was thirsty.</p><p></p><p>The party engaged the minotaurs from behind as Doopa looked around for something to hit them with, forgetting where he had laid his club down at, he finally decided on a burning piece of hickory from the fire pit. The footing was treacherous as the fallen bodies and pooling blood made traversing the distance to the minotaurs slippery at best and nearly impossible without bigger feet at worst. </p><p></p><p>The minotaurs had blocked the rest of the kitchen help from escaping, a lone kobold and a mangy dog began to direct fleeing servants into hiding places within the kitchen, and the kobold then turned his sling on the minotaurs to divert their attentions on him instead.</p><p></p><p>The party managed to end the minotaur threat before any further loss of life occurred, Xanthos striped the bodies looking for further signs of duplicity.</p><p></p><p>“I assure you they are deceased.” The kobold spoke</p><p></p><p>“I assure you you’re living because of us, what are you doing here?” Menthos asked</p><p></p><p>“I’m helping with the party, me and lunch here spotted the three brutes heading down the hall, so we funneled the people into hidey places.” The kobold replied</p><p></p><p>“Good thinking, but I don’t think these guys were part of the party guys.” Xanthos spoke</p><p></p><p>“Duh! Are you sure? They look like part of pleasure show, or maybe a jug band?” Menthos replied</p><p></p><p>“I haven’t forgotten what you did upstairs, you nearly blew my cover with that stunt!” Xanthos retorts</p><p></p><p>“Hey, I just found a doppelganger down here, I couldn’t be sure if it was you or not.” Menthos responds</p><p></p><p>“Doopa found leg of lamb, it was good.” The ogre interjects</p><p></p><p>“Where is this doppelganger?” Kessen inquires</p><p></p><p>“Locked in the freezer, I’ll show you.” Menthos answers and begins to lead the party back towards the freezer.</p><p></p><p>Helle and the pyromancers are waiting for them when they exit the hallway from the food preparation area.</p><p></p><p>“What happened?” Helle inquires</p><p></p><p>“Bunch of Carnak followers, see for yourself.” Xanthos informs him</p><p></p><p>“Yep, there’s a mangy kobold down there with his dog that seems out of place too.” Menthos advises</p><p></p><p>“I shall investigate.” Helle replies and heads towards the battle scene</p><p></p><p>He motions for the pyromancers to stop at the minotaur bodies and search them, Helle then continues onward towards the kobold.</p><p></p><p>“Is everyone out and safe now?” Helle asks</p><p></p><p>“Yeah, that should be the last of them.” The kobold replies as a couple of cooks flee back down the hallway. </p><p></p><p>The kobold, who’s back was turned to Helle, turns to face Helle, as he does Helle grabs him by the throat and sets the creature’s head on fire before he could utter a call for help. The dog begins to bark and Helle shuts it up with a <em>searing light </em> spell.</p><p></p><p>“Tell your god, he’s lost his place at the table.” Helle speaks to the incinerating kobold.</p><p></p><p>Helle drops the body once the head has been reduced to ashes, as he returns to the down minotaurs, the kobold’s body continues to slowly burn away to nothingness.</p><p></p><p>“Mark this one for return, we’ll need to question it, the other two can burn.” Helle commands pointing out the most pierced one for saving.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hairy Minotaur, post: 3300399, member: 11574"] [b]All hell's breaking loose[/b] Menthos creeps to the hallway the assassin dragged the dead body down, it ends with a closed stone door. Menthos can feel a cold breeze blowing from around the gaps in the door frame and concludes it must be a makeshift walk-in freezer. He tries the handle and finds it is not locked, opening the door slowly he feels the blast of icy air wash down the hallway. Racks of pigs and sides of beef hang silently; Menthos begins to step inside the freezer when he notices a small blood trail winding from the door back to the far right corner of the room. The faint phosphorescent light coming off the natural moss on the ceiling gives the tiefling’s vision an image of two men one slumped over against the wall, the other standing over the slumped man, frantically stripping him of his clothing, both men appear to be identical or nearly identical silhouettes. A low shuffling sound, not unlike a foot being slowly dragged across stone, emanates from a space next to Menthos. Startled, Menthos looks up at the two figures, the slumped one has fallen over on his side while the upright one has turned to look directly at Menthos. Menthos pushes on the door to widen the gap; however it hit’s something solid that prevents him for opening it any farther. The upright silhouette begins walking toward Menthos. “Sorry to have interrupted you, I know how exciting meat lockers can be on the libido.” Menthos says as he closes the door, and then hurriedly searches through his pockets for a thin piece of metal. Producing a fork, Menthos bites off one of the prongs and quickly locks the door from the outside, taking the prong he jabs it into the keyhole. He then rams the pommel of his longsword into the keyhole for good measure, “that ought to do it.” Menthos says aloud. “Hey! What are you doing down there?” It was the head chef again “I’m trying to open this door, it’s stuck.” Menthos replies “By beating on it with your sword?” The chef asks incredulously “I’m a health inspector dammit, not a rogue. I can’t figure how it’s supposed to open.” Menthos answers The head chef starts down the hallway as the door’s handle turns in Menthos’ palm, the teifling applies all the pressure he can muster but is unable to stop the handle from turning. “Step aside, I have the key.” The head chef commands Menthos hesitates, not wanting to let go of the handle. “Move!” The chef yells and shoves Menthos out of the way The door handle flies up, but Menthos’ jam job holds and the door fails to open to whoever is shoving on the other side. Bone-jarring thuds are heard against the door as the chef steps back confused “Is somebody in there?” The chef shouts as he tries to get the key in the door, only to find it no longer fits, “this is the right key, I don’t understand.” “Let me go get someone from security, they’re bound to have a crowbar or some manpower to pry this door off.” Menthos states “What about the ogre?” The chef inquires “Nah, he’s only good for one thing and if I tell him what’s behind this door, not only will he open it but you won’t have anything left to serve.” Menthos answers “Hurry then, they’ll freeze in there.” The chef commands Menthos runs to the stairs leading up to the party level and as soon as he’s gone up a couple of steps and is out of sight from the freezer door, he slows to a nonchalant walk and pushes the thought of finding someone to open the door out of his mind. Whistling an old orc battle tune, he mingles with the other guests as he emerges from the stairs. Meanwhile the rest of the party members catch a minstrel show put on by a thri-keen, while Haimish marvels at the creatures ability to play three instruments at once the rest of the party wanders the large gathered group looking for Lord De’ Lite. Xanthos’ shifted ears pick up bits of conversation none of them however include Lord De’ Lite’s name, Xanthos works his way out of the room and spies Menthos heading towards him. Xanthos waves him down to get his attention, Menthos however walks by without noticing. Xanthos reaches out and grabs his arm to stop him as he passes in front of the shifter. “Hey, hey, hey. I’m not one of the help; go find a servant to annoy!” Menthos tells the elf as he rips his arm from the elf’s grasp “Menthos it’s me, Xanthos” “How do you know my name?! Charlatan! Witch! Doppelganger” Menthos yells and points at the wealthy dressed elf The guests in close proximity to Menthos and Xanthos turn to look at what the dirty dressed teifling was yelling about. Thoroughly annoyed, Xanthos tries to back away from Menthos and leave the immediate area, however now several people had been looking directly at him and he feared his cover was blown especially if Lord De’ Lite was in the room disguised. Menthos walked on uncaring of the opinions floating around him, “Ha, ha, loser.” Menthos thought as he found Haimish, Turgar and Kessen taking in the minstrel show. “I will never understand this modern music, who would listen to a bug play a harp?” Menthos asks aloud ‘Shh! The man is brilliant.” A guest turns and tells him “Man? Looks like an enlarged starving cockroach, where’s a hill giant when you need a big shoe.” Menthos comments The thri-keen finishes up and the people start to file out of the room, Menthos catches the rest of the party and informs them of Doopa’s whereabouts and of the assassin locked in the freezer. “I think we should interrogate this assassin and see what she knows.” Kessen suggests, Haimish and Turgar agree. “And keep an eye out for Xanthos, we lost him a couple rooms back.” “He’s busy doing damage control, someone shouted doppelganger so he went to investigate.” Menthos explains As the group exits the room, Haimish catches a glimpse of a small green figure slashing into the calf of a party guest and then disappearing down the hallway away from the damage. The man reaches done for his calf and pulls his blood soaked hands away. “I’ve been stabbed!” Was all the man ever got out as he began to convulse and crumpled to the floor Haimish alerted the present group members about the goblin, “looks like a poisoned blade too.” But, as the party began to force their way through the throng of startled guests, Kessen stops them, “What is this is a diversion? One goblin cuts a random man’s leg? Too fishy for me.” The party considers his words and agrees, they turn around and begin flowing with the mass of people streaming away from the murder scene. Up ahead near the entrance, Xanthos was fuming over Menthos’ comments and trying to calm himself down before returning to his mission. He spots three large minotaurs coming down the entrance steps and exiting the entry room. The minotaurs are dressed as city guard but Xanthos spots a tattoo on the backs of each of their right hands. Recognizing the tattoo as the mark of Carnak god of slaughter, Xanthos decides to follow this new development instead as there seems to be quite a few people running away from the center of the party further down the hallway. The minotaurs’ wide bodies force the party guests to squeeze against the walls as the minotaurs walk side by side through the hallways and finally to the steps leading down to the kitchen area. Xanthos prepares to follow them but is met with the rest of the party who inform him of the goblin’s attack, Xanthos relates the minotaur appearance and the party starts downstairs. Screams and the sounds of breaking dishes erupt from the kitchen area the party hustles down the stairs to find the minotaurs cutting down the kitchen staff and have backed the remaining survivors into a hallway off the pit area that leads to the small cooking stoves and the food preparation areas, the party knew there was no escape from that area. Doopa sat absentmindedly poking a dead waiter, “W-a-t-e-r, Doopa want water.” Doopa looks up as Menthos calls out his name, the ogre waves to the rest of the party, it is only then does he notice the carnage that just transpired around him. Wondering how he had noticed the minotaurs, he remembered he was eating a particularly good piece of lamb. It’s juices were dripping down his chin and the smokiness from the fire made his mouth water, he momentarily forgot about the minotaurs and began looking for more lamb, then remembered he was thirsty. The party engaged the minotaurs from behind as Doopa looked around for something to hit them with, forgetting where he had laid his club down at, he finally decided on a burning piece of hickory from the fire pit. The footing was treacherous as the fallen bodies and pooling blood made traversing the distance to the minotaurs slippery at best and nearly impossible without bigger feet at worst. The minotaurs had blocked the rest of the kitchen help from escaping, a lone kobold and a mangy dog began to direct fleeing servants into hiding places within the kitchen, and the kobold then turned his sling on the minotaurs to divert their attentions on him instead. The party managed to end the minotaur threat before any further loss of life occurred, Xanthos striped the bodies looking for further signs of duplicity. “I assure you they are deceased.” The kobold spoke “I assure you you’re living because of us, what are you doing here?” Menthos asked “I’m helping with the party, me and lunch here spotted the three brutes heading down the hall, so we funneled the people into hidey places.” The kobold replied “Good thinking, but I don’t think these guys were part of the party guys.” Xanthos spoke “Duh! Are you sure? They look like part of pleasure show, or maybe a jug band?” Menthos replied “I haven’t forgotten what you did upstairs, you nearly blew my cover with that stunt!” Xanthos retorts “Hey, I just found a doppelganger down here, I couldn’t be sure if it was you or not.” Menthos responds “Doopa found leg of lamb, it was good.” The ogre interjects “Where is this doppelganger?” Kessen inquires “Locked in the freezer, I’ll show you.” Menthos answers and begins to lead the party back towards the freezer. Helle and the pyromancers are waiting for them when they exit the hallway from the food preparation area. “What happened?” Helle inquires “Bunch of Carnak followers, see for yourself.” Xanthos informs him “Yep, there’s a mangy kobold down there with his dog that seems out of place too.” Menthos advises “I shall investigate.” Helle replies and heads towards the battle scene He motions for the pyromancers to stop at the minotaur bodies and search them, Helle then continues onward towards the kobold. “Is everyone out and safe now?” Helle asks “Yeah, that should be the last of them.” The kobold replies as a couple of cooks flee back down the hallway. The kobold, who’s back was turned to Helle, turns to face Helle, as he does Helle grabs him by the throat and sets the creature’s head on fire before he could utter a call for help. The dog begins to bark and Helle shuts it up with a [I]searing light [/I] spell. “Tell your god, he’s lost his place at the table.” Helle speaks to the incinerating kobold. Helle drops the body once the head has been reduced to ashes, as he returns to the down minotaurs, the kobold’s body continues to slowly burn away to nothingness. “Mark this one for return, we’ll need to question it, the other two can burn.” Helle commands pointing out the most pierced one for saving. [/QUOTE]
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