D&D General Demetrios1453 Plays the Gold Box Games
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Demetrios1453
Legend
Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 29): Yûlash (Part 3): Yûlash complete!
Time to head out of the Red Plumes' safe area, and go to the Pit of Moander.
We head south, out of the compound. The guards have apparently been informed of our business and let us pass.
We travel a short distance to the south, and, curious, take a peek into a building as we pass. Apparently, we aren't the only groups in this ruined city!
Since they aren't immediately attacking we parlay and choose "NICE"
Journal Entry 34:
As they give us some nice info, we let them go...
...A kindness they repay rather rudely!
At least Buffy had the least amount of money on her (and the game mis-genders her for some reason, even when the whole section with Silk shows that the programming could handle determining gender).
Eh, we didn't lose much, and we'll be able to regain it soon enough...
We head to the south, and then turn east. Suddenly...
Three mages and a cleric this time. And those wizards will still have the same annoying protections...
So, time to break out the 4th-level spells...
Both of my magic-users start casting ice storm.
We definitely need to start damaging those in the rear, where my melee can't reach them. The good news is that here shortly, I'll have access to magical arrows (and finally have something to spend all the money on), which will make them vulnerable to my ranged characters
Bragir damages the back group, while Brin aims a bit further up.
Being in the center of both spells, and having been hit by Bant, the cleric goes down.
Brother Baltor attempts to help out...
But to no avail...
Bant rushes forward to finish off the bottom two mages...
While Baroness Bella takes out the top one.
But now the survivors start running...
They annoyingly get pretty far over...
But my melee are able to catch up, and between the two, the remaining foes go down...
Bant has been taking some hits, compared to everyone else.
So I have Baroness Bella use her Lay on Hands, which heals him a bit.
We continue east...
Weird, it's only supposed to be dwarves and thieves who can detect these, but, sure, my half-elf cleric/ranger saves the day on this one for some reason.
A bit further on, we see some friendly faces...
We turn to the north, towards the Pit of Moander. We move along briskly with no real issues until...
We advance closer...
Interesting, I wonder what that item is.
We chose combat, for a reason that will become clear very quickly.
Shambling mounds are a pain. They are immune to fire, take only half damage from cold, and lightning actually heals them. And, beyond that, regular weapon attacks only do half damage. Looking back on this, I should have broken out more of the cold spells and magic missiles, but I was wanting to go down into the Pit without having to take another rest. That was poor planning, as will become apparent...
What dissuaded me from using more cold spells was this...
Yeah, Brin was not impressed by that at all. But ranged attacks are hardly better...
(Most at least get 1 point of damage, but I took that as an example of the worst case scenario)
Poor Bant is having a really bad day, literally getting mauled since they are dishing out a significant amount of damage compared to us. The real problem is that the shambling mounds can engulf him, causing extra damage and stopping him from attacking until he's freed by the foe being damaged or killed. He uses a healing potion while being unable to attack, but that's barely a speed bump on the downward trajectory of his hit points. Brother Baltor throws out a healing spell...
(Remember, Bant's maximum HP total is currently 135)
But, again, that's only a very temporary. Thankfully, we've been slooooowly wearing them down, so there are only three left now.
My ranged give up, and charge in with their melee weapons at this point. They might get hit, but their minimal ranged damage really hasn't been very effective at all in this battle...
Finally, we take the last one down...
Ugh. That was messy.
But... it was all worth it for this.
We pick up the wand and examine it.
A wand of defoliation does 6d6 damage to plant creatures in a 3-range cone, with no saving throw. That's a lot more effective than what we were doing. And, curiously, we're about to meet all sorts of plant creatures coming up. This fight with the shambling mounds was just a taste of what lies below...
(The other wand is a wand of lightning, which is a bit of a joke, since it will actually heal the shambling mounds coming up. But while useless in the short term, it will obviously be handy later on)
As we're near the entrance to the Pit now, we move on, as resting here is going to be difficult. A short distance to the north, we see some suspicious figures.
We wait, and they flee. We really aren't in any shape for a battle at the moment.
A few steps further...
At least this time, it was the dwarf, fittingly, that noticed.
Just beyond that is the final Red Plumes check point.
And, at last, we've reached the entrance to the Pit of Moander.
At this point, we rest up, although we were interrupted by further cultists, who we let run away again...
Rested up and ready to go, we again approach the Pit of Moander. What horrors may lay below?
(Map of Yûlash. I skipped most of it, as it's just more pits, looters, Zhent patrols, plus some damaged walls, with nothing much of interest. I could have ground out some XP I guess, but no one is that close to leveling, so I just moved on quickly to the far more interesting areas below)
Time to head out of the Red Plumes' safe area, and go to the Pit of Moander.
We head south, out of the compound. The guards have apparently been informed of our business and let us pass.
We travel a short distance to the south, and, curious, take a peek into a building as we pass. Apparently, we aren't the only groups in this ruined city!
Since they aren't immediately attacking we parlay and choose "NICE"
Journal Entry 34:
As they give us some nice info, we let them go...
...A kindness they repay rather rudely!
At least Buffy had the least amount of money on her (and the game mis-genders her for some reason, even when the whole section with Silk shows that the programming could handle determining gender).
Eh, we didn't lose much, and we'll be able to regain it soon enough...
We head to the south, and then turn east. Suddenly...
Three mages and a cleric this time. And those wizards will still have the same annoying protections...
So, time to break out the 4th-level spells...
Both of my magic-users start casting ice storm.
We definitely need to start damaging those in the rear, where my melee can't reach them. The good news is that here shortly, I'll have access to magical arrows (and finally have something to spend all the money on), which will make them vulnerable to my ranged characters
Bragir damages the back group, while Brin aims a bit further up.
Being in the center of both spells, and having been hit by Bant, the cleric goes down.
Brother Baltor attempts to help out...
But to no avail...
Bant rushes forward to finish off the bottom two mages...
While Baroness Bella takes out the top one.
But now the survivors start running...
They annoyingly get pretty far over...
But my melee are able to catch up, and between the two, the remaining foes go down...
Bant has been taking some hits, compared to everyone else.
So I have Baroness Bella use her Lay on Hands, which heals him a bit.
We continue east...
Weird, it's only supposed to be dwarves and thieves who can detect these, but, sure, my half-elf cleric/ranger saves the day on this one for some reason.
A bit further on, we see some friendly faces...
We turn to the north, towards the Pit of Moander. We move along briskly with no real issues until...
We advance closer...
Interesting, I wonder what that item is.
We chose combat, for a reason that will become clear very quickly.
Shambling mounds are a pain. They are immune to fire, take only half damage from cold, and lightning actually heals them. And, beyond that, regular weapon attacks only do half damage. Looking back on this, I should have broken out more of the cold spells and magic missiles, but I was wanting to go down into the Pit without having to take another rest. That was poor planning, as will become apparent...
What dissuaded me from using more cold spells was this...
Yeah, Brin was not impressed by that at all. But ranged attacks are hardly better...
(Most at least get 1 point of damage, but I took that as an example of the worst case scenario)
Poor Bant is having a really bad day, literally getting mauled since they are dishing out a significant amount of damage compared to us. The real problem is that the shambling mounds can engulf him, causing extra damage and stopping him from attacking until he's freed by the foe being damaged or killed. He uses a healing potion while being unable to attack, but that's barely a speed bump on the downward trajectory of his hit points. Brother Baltor throws out a healing spell...
(Remember, Bant's maximum HP total is currently 135)
But, again, that's only a very temporary. Thankfully, we've been slooooowly wearing them down, so there are only three left now.
My ranged give up, and charge in with their melee weapons at this point. They might get hit, but their minimal ranged damage really hasn't been very effective at all in this battle...
Finally, we take the last one down...
Ugh. That was messy.
But... it was all worth it for this.
We pick up the wand and examine it.
A wand of defoliation does 6d6 damage to plant creatures in a 3-range cone, with no saving throw. That's a lot more effective than what we were doing. And, curiously, we're about to meet all sorts of plant creatures coming up. This fight with the shambling mounds was just a taste of what lies below...
(The other wand is a wand of lightning, which is a bit of a joke, since it will actually heal the shambling mounds coming up. But while useless in the short term, it will obviously be handy later on)
As we're near the entrance to the Pit now, we move on, as resting here is going to be difficult. A short distance to the north, we see some suspicious figures.
We wait, and they flee. We really aren't in any shape for a battle at the moment.
A few steps further...
At least this time, it was the dwarf, fittingly, that noticed.
Just beyond that is the final Red Plumes check point.
And, at last, we've reached the entrance to the Pit of Moander.
At this point, we rest up, although we were interrupted by further cultists, who we let run away again...
Rested up and ready to go, we again approach the Pit of Moander. What horrors may lay below?
(Map of Yûlash. I skipped most of it, as it's just more pits, looters, Zhent patrols, plus some damaged walls, with nothing much of interest. I could have ground out some XP I guess, but no one is that close to leveling, so I just moved on quickly to the far more interesting areas below)
Last edited:
Demetrios1453
Legend
Hey, I apologize, the past few weeks have been very busy. I should be back posting these again in the next week or two.
SteveC
Doing the best imitation of myself
Just going to say it again: you have no idea how much joy you've brought by making me remember these games. You are the best!
Marchand
Villager
If there is anyone interested in some unusual Gold Box Games fan art, here you go...
D&D General [MOSAIC ART THREAD] Pixel Art Homage to the AD&D Gold Box Game series
D&D General [MOSAIC ART THREAD] Pixel Art Homage to the AD&D Gold Box Game series
Demetrios1453
Legend
Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 30): The Pit of Moander (Part 1)
Sorry about the missed weeks - a combination of being busy, then getting hit with a nasty bout of the flu! But we're back, and about to meet some new friends!
Well, into the Pit we go!
It's never good when crazed cultists declare you to be the Chosen Ones.
Hey! Unfair!
(This game in particular likes to block you from going back to many areas. In this case, we won't be able to enter Yûlash by any means or route again.)
Convenient. Cliched. And annoying.
Hmm, odd place for a bakery. I do hope they have cookies, though!
Hmm, I guess we'll investigate through that doorway.
I do hope they have a nice selection of cookies. Chocolate chip would be really nice! We continue south through the rooms.
As we've never met vegepygmies before, how do we know what their squeals sound like? Maybe a monster impressionist visited Phlan at some point? Or maybe the Realms has kids' toys for this? "The cow goes 'Moooooo'. The vegepygmy goes 'Squeaaaal'."
This is just making my party hungry at this point. They better have cookies, and they better be good!
Well, that's impressive.
Tar?!?! Who puts tar in baked goods? This seems like we're being set up for disappointment.
Oooookay. That's worrying. We go into the room beyond, where the fighting was occurring, to discover just what exactly is happening here.
Interesting. And why are we getting barraged by weird smells?
Oh, they recognize our bonds! That's a little bit worrying. But, they definitely don't seem to be friends of the cultists, so we decide to Parlay.
We tell her our story.
Journal Entry 3 is a long one, and, SPOILER ALERT, it's basically a quick synopsis of the novel Azure Bonds.
Technically, Dragonbait is a saurial, but I'm assuming that was just a typo. Also, all the strange smells are part of how saurials communicate, indicating moods. The baking bread was Dragonbait being angry (how disappointing for our stomachs), the tar was him feeling triumphant, and the violets, brimstone, and honeysuckle was him being afraid, confused, and concerned in quick order as we entered the room.
Sure, a couple of extra warriors is always nice!
And treasure is always nice too!
Our new party:
They've got some weird buffs there, although I'm not complaining.
Alias' character sheet:
She has pretty decent stats, but is only 6 years old! This is because, as she said in her story, she was originally just a construct that attained actual real life during her creation. Only her HP total is a bit low, but overall, she's much better than what we got with Akabar!
Dragonbait's character sheet:
He's not quite as good as Alias, but it's not too bad. He has good HP, but his AC isn't all that great, due to his poor DEX. Also, his XP is weirdly low.
The good news is that they do have passable HP, so they can take some damage, all while putting out damage of their own. So, unlike Akabar, they should be reasonably useful in combat. The one real annoyance is that they're actually useful but only will be with us for a pretty short time, unlike pretty useless Akabar, who hung out with us for what seemed like forever.
We'll keep them in the back, as they will guard our back flanks, and not be hit quickly with their somewhat poor ACs, as they would have done if they were in the front line. This pushes Buffy back up front again, but I'll move the order around so she's in the middle of the front ranks and not out on the flank getting hit a lot.
(This is one of the very few times in the Gold Box games where you'll have a full compliment of 8 characters, which is the maximum allowed by the engine)
With our new NPC friends in the group, we head out the south door of the room we were in previously.
I'm getting a bit tired of dying cultists exulting triumphantly with their last breaths. Time to ruin their afterlives for them, I guess.
I point to the dead cultists on the floor. "They could."
We circle back north and head through some doors. Buffy gets some practice picking locks on them.
At this point, you can either elect combat or let the monsters go. Shambling mounds are a pain, even with our nifty wand of defoliation, so we wait and this group leaves us alone.
We go through the door and enter another north-south corridor.
As good a guess as any.
We enter another room, and are again confronted by plant monsters:
While shambling mounds are annoying, vegepygmies aren't a real threat at our level. And we do want to have practice with our new wand. So we decide on combat this time.
They come in two sizes, regular, and large, the latter of which have twice the hit points.
Brin gets the wand out and ready...
And fires upon the vegepygmies. She can use this wand even with Buffy in the way, as non-plant creatures are completely unharmed by the wand's, magic. Unfortunately, the wand's range is only three square cone, so no way of getting a lot of them in the AoE. But it does do some pretty significant damage!
The others just attack normally while Brin moves around to fire on the vegepygmies...
Until the last one goes down...
Since they're pretty low-level creatures, we don't get much in the way of XP for them, and they have no treasure whatsoever.
We leave the room and head back to the previous north-south corridor. As we reach a bend in the corridor, Alias and Dragonbait notice something interesting...
At least we know which way to come when we want to leave, since the cultists rather inconveniently decided to collapse the main entrance.
(Lemon means Dragonbait is happy).
We head left (east) and continue to another junction, where we turn south.
That is a bit worrying. Surely they can't all be waiting ahead as part of trap, right?
Having explored most places of interest on the first level (other than the exit, which we'll get to in the future as we leave), we stand at the entrance to the lower level. We'll pick things back up here in the next post!
Sorry about the missed weeks - a combination of being busy, then getting hit with a nasty bout of the flu! But we're back, and about to meet some new friends!
Well, into the Pit we go!
It's never good when crazed cultists declare you to be the Chosen Ones.
Hey! Unfair!
(This game in particular likes to block you from going back to many areas. In this case, we won't be able to enter Yûlash by any means or route again.)
Convenient. Cliched. And annoying.
Hmm, odd place for a bakery. I do hope they have cookies, though!
Hmm, I guess we'll investigate through that doorway.
I do hope they have a nice selection of cookies. Chocolate chip would be really nice! We continue south through the rooms.
As we've never met vegepygmies before, how do we know what their squeals sound like? Maybe a monster impressionist visited Phlan at some point? Or maybe the Realms has kids' toys for this? "The cow goes 'Moooooo'. The vegepygmy goes 'Squeaaaal'."
This is just making my party hungry at this point. They better have cookies, and they better be good!
Well, that's impressive.
Tar?!?! Who puts tar in baked goods? This seems like we're being set up for disappointment.
Oooookay. That's worrying. We go into the room beyond, where the fighting was occurring, to discover just what exactly is happening here.
Interesting. And why are we getting barraged by weird smells?
Oh, they recognize our bonds! That's a little bit worrying. But, they definitely don't seem to be friends of the cultists, so we decide to Parlay.
We tell her our story.
Journal Entry 3 is a long one, and, SPOILER ALERT, it's basically a quick synopsis of the novel Azure Bonds.
Technically, Dragonbait is a saurial, but I'm assuming that was just a typo. Also, all the strange smells are part of how saurials communicate, indicating moods. The baking bread was Dragonbait being angry (how disappointing for our stomachs), the tar was him feeling triumphant, and the violets, brimstone, and honeysuckle was him being afraid, confused, and concerned in quick order as we entered the room.
Sure, a couple of extra warriors is always nice!
And treasure is always nice too!
Our new party:
They've got some weird buffs there, although I'm not complaining.
Alias' character sheet:
She has pretty decent stats, but is only 6 years old! This is because, as she said in her story, she was originally just a construct that attained actual real life during her creation. Only her HP total is a bit low, but overall, she's much better than what we got with Akabar!
Dragonbait's character sheet:
He's not quite as good as Alias, but it's not too bad. He has good HP, but his AC isn't all that great, due to his poor DEX. Also, his XP is weirdly low.
The good news is that they do have passable HP, so they can take some damage, all while putting out damage of their own. So, unlike Akabar, they should be reasonably useful in combat. The one real annoyance is that they're actually useful but only will be with us for a pretty short time, unlike pretty useless Akabar, who hung out with us for what seemed like forever.
We'll keep them in the back, as they will guard our back flanks, and not be hit quickly with their somewhat poor ACs, as they would have done if they were in the front line. This pushes Buffy back up front again, but I'll move the order around so she's in the middle of the front ranks and not out on the flank getting hit a lot.
(This is one of the very few times in the Gold Box games where you'll have a full compliment of 8 characters, which is the maximum allowed by the engine)
With our new NPC friends in the group, we head out the south door of the room we were in previously.
I'm getting a bit tired of dying cultists exulting triumphantly with their last breaths. Time to ruin their afterlives for them, I guess.
I point to the dead cultists on the floor. "They could."
We circle back north and head through some doors. Buffy gets some practice picking locks on them.
At this point, you can either elect combat or let the monsters go. Shambling mounds are a pain, even with our nifty wand of defoliation, so we wait and this group leaves us alone.
We go through the door and enter another north-south corridor.
As good a guess as any.
We enter another room, and are again confronted by plant monsters:
While shambling mounds are annoying, vegepygmies aren't a real threat at our level. And we do want to have practice with our new wand. So we decide on combat this time.
They come in two sizes, regular, and large, the latter of which have twice the hit points.
Brin gets the wand out and ready...
And fires upon the vegepygmies. She can use this wand even with Buffy in the way, as non-plant creatures are completely unharmed by the wand's, magic. Unfortunately, the wand's range is only three square cone, so no way of getting a lot of them in the AoE. But it does do some pretty significant damage!
The others just attack normally while Brin moves around to fire on the vegepygmies...
Until the last one goes down...
Since they're pretty low-level creatures, we don't get much in the way of XP for them, and they have no treasure whatsoever.
We leave the room and head back to the previous north-south corridor. As we reach a bend in the corridor, Alias and Dragonbait notice something interesting...
At least we know which way to come when we want to leave, since the cultists rather inconveniently decided to collapse the main entrance.
(Lemon means Dragonbait is happy).
We head left (east) and continue to another junction, where we turn south.
That is a bit worrying. Surely they can't all be waiting ahead as part of trap, right?
Having explored most places of interest on the first level (other than the exit, which we'll get to in the future as we leave), we stand at the entrance to the lower level. We'll pick things back up here in the next post!
Demetrios1453
Legend
Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 31): The Pit of Moander (Part 2)
Down to the lower level we go!
No, we just came down.
A few steps beyond, we see something interesting!
We examine the corpse to see if it has anything interesting.
Journal Entry 46:
Sounds like Mogion has gone a bit rogue, to the point her other allies are planning to turn against her. And she was (is?) planning to bring back Moander fully when it's not necessary? Yeah, even for the weird plans of our foes, that's surely going quite a bit too far!
We continue a bit further, when Alias suddenly notices something.
I mean, no need to lie or evade, so we tell the truth.
That small matter settled, we make a turn to the north and head down the central corridor of this level. We could explore more fully, but that would only result in some extra encounters, and with resting down here difficult and a really big battle ahead, it's best just to march forward.
We travel some way down this corridor and find cultists doing for the evulz cult-y things.
I'm sure the slug could just graze on the plant life here, but no, they have to feed it a living human.
We can't let an innocent die like that! So we attack. (and, if you try to flee, Alias and Dragonbait attack anyway, so you're forced to fight no matter what).
Normally, this would be fairly easy, as, being grouped up, the cultists are ripe for a nice fireball or two. But that wall is in the way, making aiming awkward. But we need to injure them so they don't start popping off hold person spells and making this messy. But Brin will do our best to injure as many as possible...
(Fireballs will be less than useful in the upcoming big fight, so no problem blasting away with them now!)
Brother Baltor has his own way of shutting those cultists down...
Meanwhile, some of the cultists begin casting as well, meaning hold person spells of their own incoming!
Brin aims as best she can, which will get most of the culstists.
33 is enough to take them down if they fail their saves (I'm too often a second too fast with the screenshot to get the "Cultist is down and dying" message below).
Brother Baltor meanwhile is aiming at the rightmost cultists, including the two not hit by the fireball. He successfully holds two of the three he aimed at, but the one that made his save was one that was casting, and he immediately gets off his own hold person. Thankfully, only Brin fails her save, and being in the back, is protected by those in front of her from an insta-kill.
(A red "X" indicates those that are held. The cultist that got his spell off is the one with 24 HP)
But with many of the surviving cultists hurt and held, we rapidly bring them down, making sure to injure the one that got the spell off so he doesn't do it again. The slug misses with its acid attack, and, given it has a poor AC, we take it down quickly too.
And soon the battle is done.
The spell ends on Brin soon after, and we take a look at their treasure.
Magical ring mail isn't particularly useful for us to take, especially as loaded down as we are, so we just leave it there.
We continue north up the corridor until we reach some impressive doors.
(Violet means Dragonbait is afraid).
Given that there's a huge, two-stage battle coming up, we buff up.
And here is how the party looks, buffed up and ready for battle:
Next stop, Mogion and Moander! I'll end it here today, so as not to have to awkwardly split the big battle coming up.
Down to the lower level we go!
No, we just came down.
A few steps beyond, we see something interesting!
We examine the corpse to see if it has anything interesting.
Journal Entry 46:
Sounds like Mogion has gone a bit rogue, to the point her other allies are planning to turn against her. And she was (is?) planning to bring back Moander fully when it's not necessary? Yeah, even for the weird plans of our foes, that's surely going quite a bit too far!
We continue a bit further, when Alias suddenly notices something.
I mean, no need to lie or evade, so we tell the truth.
That small matter settled, we make a turn to the north and head down the central corridor of this level. We could explore more fully, but that would only result in some extra encounters, and with resting down here difficult and a really big battle ahead, it's best just to march forward.
We travel some way down this corridor and find cultists doing for the evulz cult-y things.
I'm sure the slug could just graze on the plant life here, but no, they have to feed it a living human.
We can't let an innocent die like that! So we attack. (and, if you try to flee, Alias and Dragonbait attack anyway, so you're forced to fight no matter what).
Normally, this would be fairly easy, as, being grouped up, the cultists are ripe for a nice fireball or two. But that wall is in the way, making aiming awkward. But we need to injure them so they don't start popping off hold person spells and making this messy. But Brin will do our best to injure as many as possible...
(Fireballs will be less than useful in the upcoming big fight, so no problem blasting away with them now!)
Brother Baltor has his own way of shutting those cultists down...
Meanwhile, some of the cultists begin casting as well, meaning hold person spells of their own incoming!
Brin aims as best she can, which will get most of the culstists.
33 is enough to take them down if they fail their saves (I'm too often a second too fast with the screenshot to get the "Cultist is down and dying" message below).
Brother Baltor meanwhile is aiming at the rightmost cultists, including the two not hit by the fireball. He successfully holds two of the three he aimed at, but the one that made his save was one that was casting, and he immediately gets off his own hold person. Thankfully, only Brin fails her save, and being in the back, is protected by those in front of her from an insta-kill.
(A red "X" indicates those that are held. The cultist that got his spell off is the one with 24 HP)
But with many of the surviving cultists hurt and held, we rapidly bring them down, making sure to injure the one that got the spell off so he doesn't do it again. The slug misses with its acid attack, and, given it has a poor AC, we take it down quickly too.
And soon the battle is done.
The spell ends on Brin soon after, and we take a look at their treasure.
Magical ring mail isn't particularly useful for us to take, especially as loaded down as we are, so we just leave it there.
We continue north up the corridor until we reach some impressive doors.
(Violet means Dragonbait is afraid).
Given that there's a huge, two-stage battle coming up, we buff up.
And here is how the party looks, buffed up and ready for battle:
Next stop, Mogion and Moander! I'll end it here today, so as not to have to awkwardly split the big battle coming up.
Demetrios1453
Legend
Curse of the Azure Bonds (Part 32): The Pit of Moander (Part 3)
Properly buffed up for what is to come, we walk through the door to the inner sanctum.
Tsk, tsk, Alias. Spitting is such a dirty habit!
There's really not much choice here. All four options will just continue on the same. The only difference is that when the battle actually starts "FLEE" will have you start further away from your foes, which is definitely not a good thing. We just choose to attack.
Yet again, forced into things for plot reasons.
Can't have them running around during what is effectively a cut scene, right?
Oh, that's not ominous or anything...
Ewwww.
This seems to be exceptionally poor planning on their part (but, of all the groups bonding us, this one definitely seems to be a bit low on the INT and WIS scores). Well, let's take advantage of their astonishing lack of foresight and deal with them!
It's attack time!
Everyone ages. No one but Baroness Bella cares. Even Alias, who is still in single digits, age-wise.
Mogion, six cultists, and five shambling mounds. As messy as fights with the shamblers are, we need to shut down those cultists as quickly as we can before they get any spells off!
Bragir has the perfect way of doing so...
And does so quite well, taking down most of the cultists. All of them were hit in the fireball, so no spells for them this round!
Brin moves in with the wand to deal with the shambling mounds.
Eh, OK (that's fairly low damage for the wand), but with weapon damage halved when attacking the shamblers, it's still good, and she can affect several at a time.
Meanwhile, my hasted characters are chopping away at the shambling mounds and remaining cultists. The cultists go quickly other than Mogion, while, even if they are just doing half damage on the shambling mounds, they're at least doing half damage twice as fast! The real irritant is that the mounds can engulf characters, doing extra damage, putting them in danger of suffocation, and keeping them from acting while engulfed. This happens several times, but the party kills off the offending mounds and free anyone entrapped quickly.
Bragir is the one who is focusing on Mogion:
While Brin keeps firing away with the wand
That's much better damage!
Bragir takes Mogion down with a shot from his bow
(I was like a second too late to get the message that she went down, oops)
Finally, we're down to just one shambling mound, and Brin uses the wand again:
Which annoyingly takes it down to just 1 HP. Bant takes care of it immediately afterwards, and the battle is done!
Surprisingly, the damage is fairly minimal. And we still have a decent duration left on our buffs, which will be really handy here in a moment...
Decent XP, but not enough for anyone to level though.
We do get some nice treasure from Mogion though!
(All that ring mail, while magical, is just too bulky to drag around, sadly).
It's plate +3, shield +2, and a cloak of displacement (which lowers AC by 2). The mace is only +2, which is the same Brother Baltor already had, so it's just set aside to be sold later. After shuffling equipment around for my front three, we now have some excellent ACs for them:
(Buffy is up front only temporarily while Alias and Dragonbait are here).
Well, great! Battle over, evil cult leader dead, and another bond gone! Time to head out and celebrate!
Good, good...
Uh, not so good...
Definitely not good!
Those are some pretty rough monsters - they're basically super-charged shambling mounds, even with the weird name. Why not "Bit of Moander"? It's the same number of characters. I guess someone was making a pun with the Bit O' Honey candy?
In any case, we luckily still have some duration left on our buffs (see above), so hopefully that will be enough to destroy these latest monstrosities!
Everyone concentrates on the nearest BOM, and we're soon hacking it down, even with the halved damage (they still have the same immunities/resistances as regular shambling mounds). Brin gets close up with the wand, which does some decent damage...
And after further hacking from the melee, she takes it down the next time:
Which is good, as the BOM had engulfed poor Brother Baltor and had done some pretty significant damage to him.
All we can do is hack away and use the wand, since, with their immunities, spells are pretty useless.
Although poor Brother Baltor keeps getting engulfed and taking damage. They really like picking on him!
Finally, the last one goes down!
Decent XP again, although, again, not enough to level anyone. No treasure though.
Yay! Another major quest item retrieved.
(As you can see, poor Brother Baltor took a beating, and is down to only 30 HP)
Well, that's not good!
Well, Alias, I do agree with your assessment that this place will be crawling with angry cultists now, so best to get out quickly. However, not before getting said treasure!
Dragonbait will use his lay on hands on Brother Baltor
Which, combined with some of his own heal spells, gets him back up to a bit better amount of HP
And now it's time to save the game...
...because I didn't save immediately after the battle originally, stepped forward, and was immediately wrecked by a random encounter of shambling mounds. So I had to re-load and do it all over a second time! You would think after almost 40 years of playing these games I would remember to do that immediately after each major battle, but, no, it just slipped my mind lol.
Anyway, with the big battle finished, I'll stop here today. Next time we'll search for that treasure behind the altar, and then try to escape with our skins intact!
Properly buffed up for what is to come, we walk through the door to the inner sanctum.
Tsk, tsk, Alias. Spitting is such a dirty habit!
There's really not much choice here. All four options will just continue on the same. The only difference is that when the battle actually starts "FLEE" will have you start further away from your foes, which is definitely not a good thing. We just choose to attack.
Yet again, forced into things for plot reasons.
Can't have them running around during what is effectively a cut scene, right?
Oh, that's not ominous or anything...
Ewwww.
This seems to be exceptionally poor planning on their part (but, of all the groups bonding us, this one definitely seems to be a bit low on the INT and WIS scores). Well, let's take advantage of their astonishing lack of foresight and deal with them!
It's attack time!
Everyone ages. No one but Baroness Bella cares. Even Alias, who is still in single digits, age-wise.
Mogion, six cultists, and five shambling mounds. As messy as fights with the shamblers are, we need to shut down those cultists as quickly as we can before they get any spells off!
Bragir has the perfect way of doing so...
And does so quite well, taking down most of the cultists. All of them were hit in the fireball, so no spells for them this round!
Brin moves in with the wand to deal with the shambling mounds.
Eh, OK (that's fairly low damage for the wand), but with weapon damage halved when attacking the shamblers, it's still good, and she can affect several at a time.
Meanwhile, my hasted characters are chopping away at the shambling mounds and remaining cultists. The cultists go quickly other than Mogion, while, even if they are just doing half damage on the shambling mounds, they're at least doing half damage twice as fast! The real irritant is that the mounds can engulf characters, doing extra damage, putting them in danger of suffocation, and keeping them from acting while engulfed. This happens several times, but the party kills off the offending mounds and free anyone entrapped quickly.
Bragir is the one who is focusing on Mogion:
While Brin keeps firing away with the wand
That's much better damage!
Bragir takes Mogion down with a shot from his bow
(I was like a second too late to get the message that she went down, oops)
Finally, we're down to just one shambling mound, and Brin uses the wand again:
Which annoyingly takes it down to just 1 HP. Bant takes care of it immediately afterwards, and the battle is done!
Surprisingly, the damage is fairly minimal. And we still have a decent duration left on our buffs, which will be really handy here in a moment...
Decent XP, but not enough for anyone to level though.
We do get some nice treasure from Mogion though!
(All that ring mail, while magical, is just too bulky to drag around, sadly).
It's plate +3, shield +2, and a cloak of displacement (which lowers AC by 2). The mace is only +2, which is the same Brother Baltor already had, so it's just set aside to be sold later. After shuffling equipment around for my front three, we now have some excellent ACs for them:
(Buffy is up front only temporarily while Alias and Dragonbait are here).
Well, great! Battle over, evil cult leader dead, and another bond gone! Time to head out and celebrate!
Good, good...
Uh, not so good...
Definitely not good!
Those are some pretty rough monsters - they're basically super-charged shambling mounds, even with the weird name. Why not "Bit of Moander"? It's the same number of characters. I guess someone was making a pun with the Bit O' Honey candy?
In any case, we luckily still have some duration left on our buffs (see above), so hopefully that will be enough to destroy these latest monstrosities!
Everyone concentrates on the nearest BOM, and we're soon hacking it down, even with the halved damage (they still have the same immunities/resistances as regular shambling mounds). Brin gets close up with the wand, which does some decent damage...
And after further hacking from the melee, she takes it down the next time:
Which is good, as the BOM had engulfed poor Brother Baltor and had done some pretty significant damage to him.
All we can do is hack away and use the wand, since, with their immunities, spells are pretty useless.
Although poor Brother Baltor keeps getting engulfed and taking damage. They really like picking on him!
Finally, the last one goes down!
Decent XP again, although, again, not enough to level anyone. No treasure though.
Yay! Another major quest item retrieved.
(As you can see, poor Brother Baltor took a beating, and is down to only 30 HP)
Well, that's not good!
Well, Alias, I do agree with your assessment that this place will be crawling with angry cultists now, so best to get out quickly. However, not before getting said treasure!
Dragonbait will use his lay on hands on Brother Baltor
Which, combined with some of his own heal spells, gets him back up to a bit better amount of HP
And now it's time to save the game...
...because I didn't save immediately after the battle originally, stepped forward, and was immediately wrecked by a random encounter of shambling mounds. So I had to re-load and do it all over a second time! You would think after almost 40 years of playing these games I would remember to do that immediately after each major battle, but, no, it just slipped my mind lol.
Anyway, with the big battle finished, I'll stop here today. Next time we'll search for that treasure behind the altar, and then try to escape with our skins intact!
Last edited:
VikingLegion
Explorer
Awesome thread, I came across it a couple weeks ago and have been trying to catch up 2-3 pages a night. I played a couple of these way back in the day - I think it was Gateway to the Savage Frontier and maybe Dark Queen of Krynn. This was over 30 years ago so my memory may be hazy. I (obviously) didn't have that companion/editor, and I recall spending HOURS on character creation with my best friend, rolling over and over to try for super-characters and subbing out with him when one of our eyes started to glaze over.
We ended up with a Paladin with STR 18/00, CON 18, DEX 16, and passably good stats for everything else. He was the champion of our group, carrying the rest through. I remember about 2/3 through Gateway, he suddenly couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. We didn't know all the nuances of the rules back then and never really figured out why he went from stud to dud so quickly. After reading this I assume he must've gotten level drained or Strength drained by an undead and we weren't able to repair the damage?
Anyway, very good times. This thread is something like a time capsule, letting me relive the gist of those games, if not the exact experiences. Huge thanks for taking the time to chronicle your journey, and I'm pulling for you to stick with it.
By the way, the story of Buffy all lined up to backstab the vampire into oblivion and then MISSING was hilarious. I might've thrown my monitor through the window in frustration, but you seemed to take it in stride with good humor.
We ended up with a Paladin with STR 18/00, CON 18, DEX 16, and passably good stats for everything else. He was the champion of our group, carrying the rest through. I remember about 2/3 through Gateway, he suddenly couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag. We didn't know all the nuances of the rules back then and never really figured out why he went from stud to dud so quickly. After reading this I assume he must've gotten level drained or Strength drained by an undead and we weren't able to repair the damage?
Anyway, very good times. This thread is something like a time capsule, letting me relive the gist of those games, if not the exact experiences. Huge thanks for taking the time to chronicle your journey, and I'm pulling for you to stick with it.
By the way, the story of Buffy all lined up to backstab the vampire into oblivion and then MISSING was hilarious. I might've thrown my monitor through the window in frustration, but you seemed to take it in stride with good humor.
Demetrios1453
Legend
Thanks for reading!
And there will be plenty of vampires in Pools of Darkness for Buffy to get that backstab in!
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