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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 5869757" data-attributes="member: 3586">Players & CharactersRich - Thief 5Reece - Thief 4Tait - Fighter 4Paul - Fighter 4Josh - Cleric 4Callen - Fighter 3The First ExpeditionI'd designed the adventure on the day (rather than on-the-fly) during the hour I spent waiting for a Heroclix tournament to start, and in the hour after it finished before AD&D got underway. I used the old Dungeon Geomorphs (Lower Levels) to help me draw the dungeon, and the area explored by the PCs looked like this:<img src="http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic1279929_lg.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />The characters began in the entry hall (1), where a crackling energy field protected the temple's interior. Reece and Rich gave it a good look, and various items were thrown through it, before Reece tried putting his toe through... and succeeded, with no ill-effect. He then went through fully, and it was then that the full nature of the energy field was discovered: it was a one-way door; you could enter the Temple, but you couldn't leave.Sadly, no-one started humming Hotel California at this point. They're all too young!Beyond was the Grand Entrance Chamber (2), which had four statues of kopru wielding various items (whip: NE, staff NW, scythe SE and key SW), but the party's attention was taken by the 4 ghouls creeping down from the north passage. Josh turned them, but they were all dead by the end of the first round so it really wasn't much of a problem - though Tait and Josh were paralysed by their claws, lasting 20 minutes for Josh and 40 minutes for Tait (the Monster Manual actually doesn't list the time of paralysation... I took the times from the Moldvay Basic book).Reece examined the statue holding the key in great detail, hoping it would get them out of there, but the statue was just a statue.The group then headed down the west passage, eventually reaching chamber (9), which held a pedestal with a very large ruby surrounded by a group of six or eight arguing gnolls. Josh cast Silence to shield the approach of the thieves, and Reece and Rich crept down to attack... the twenty gnolls. Oops - not all of them could be seen from the passageway!After getting in their backstabs, the two thieves fled back down the passageway, the gnolls in pursuit. The gnolls ran into the rest of the party - it was a big fight, but the gnolls were really disadvantaged by the width of the passageway, and the fighters of the group were able to hold them off. Eventually all twenty of the gnolls were slain, and the group took the ruby. I'd intended it to be 1,000 gp base value, but it ended up being worth 7,000 gp after some very good variation rolls!Reece celebrated, as he now had enough XP to level up, and was all for returning to the surface... until he realised that they couldn't leave. I found that very amusing. Reece muttered something about my parentage.The group was rather hurt at this stage, so they holed up in the small closest off the gnoll room to rest - nothing disturbed them in the night.The group then opened the door to a small chamber (6), which was mostly undisturbed, before heading south to a room (4) with several pits in the south and a great mural on the east wall of slaves being forced towards a gate by kopru slavemasters with whips and keys. The pits - once full of water for the amphibious kopru - were now dry, and were now inhabited by four huge spiders, which attacked the group. Three were slain and the last retreated into the pipes below the pits, and the group used the antivenin it had bought in the village at the start of the adventure to treat the spider bites. A stone container in one of the pits yielded 400 pp and 3000 ep, though a dart trap hurt Reece. (He then disassembled it and took the parts for later use).Investigating the mural closer the group detected the secret door behind it, and from there made their way into the control chamber (3) for the entrance energy field. Guarding it were two living statues made of rock that became molten when Reece went up to the controls - they were destroyed in the ensuing combat, but Reece took some nasty hits first.Realising they'd disabled the block on the way out, they returned to the village and gained their reward: 2,225 XP each, which was enough for a few of them to gain a level.The Second ExpeditionAbout a week later (after rest and training), the group returned to the dungeon and continued their explorations; the energy field had not returned. Returning to the deserted room (6) they'd glanced into before, Reece discovered that they hadn't properly searched it when a great pendulum blade trap swung from a secret compartment in the wall, striking him for a lot of damage. Rich disabled it and Reece swore a lot. (And Josh healed him a bit).The next small room (7) also appeared empty, but Reece and Rich made sure - yes, it was empty! The final room in that area (8) held a magic circle surrounding a pool of water, and many shelves that were now bare of items. The pool really interested Reece, and he investigated it thoroughly, eventually getting Tait to take a drink of the water. This was a mistake, and soon Tait was feeling really, really ill - basically incapacitated. Despite Tait's incapacity, the group continued on under the "one more room" theory before returning home, taking the passageways east that lead them to a room with many robes for humanoid slaves (18), and its counterpart (17). A room with many copper jars (21) proved to have a lot of treasure stored within the jars - 3,000 silver pieces in total - and the group were smart enough to make lassos to pull over the jars rather than triggering the electricity traps on the jars.They then proceeded to explore the south-east section of the dungeon, with empty rooms of (11) and (12) proceeding to a room that held a great iron throne with a iron crown set above it (13). A lever could lower the crown onto whoever sat in the throne, and Reece's halfling happily stood on the throne as the crown was lowered onto its head. In fact, the throne had been constructed by the kopru to increase the efficiency of their slaves, and gave Reece a +1 Strength at the cost of a point of Intelligence! Both half-orcs (Tait and Paul) were very interested in using the machine, while Callen just shook his head at the enthusiasm of his fellow adventurers to get their brains fried, but the machine would not work again. (They'll likely try it again on their next trip into the dungeon).Having not found anything to fight, the group proceeded to a room with a great clear pool in it which contained a large amount of gold - about 400 of it. Reece dived into the pool to retrieve the gold, only to have a great shock: it was a pool of acid! The group had been *very* good at checking the nature of all the other pools, but with familiarity comes contempt, and Reece dropped to -8 hit points and almost died - a grappling hook was used to quickly retrieve him and Josh used his spells to stabilize the idiotic halfling.The group then returned home, gaining another 200 XP or so for their experiences.Cheers!</blockquote>

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